Amusement Parks -- Weekend Assignment --very late

   I missed the weekly assignment about amusement park rides. I didn’t have any tales about Amusement parks. I forgot, there were amusement rides BEFORE there even was a Disneyland.

   In Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s there were Venice Pier, Ocean Park Pier, and Long Beach Pier. The carnival rides, the tattoo parlors, the cotton candy vendors gathered there. And each had a roller coaster, and each coaster had its unique thrills. All three were the rickety wooden variety, standing tall against the skyline, and all of them over the ocean. Lord help you if you went off the track or fell out, you’d have to swim for it. Hold on tight unless you were idiot enough to hold your hands over your head. Some fools did.

   Ocean Park coaser was famous, and made familiar by Cinerama, a pioneer wide screen movie with stereo sound that gave the feeling of riding the coaster. Venice was a bit wilder, and you had to be bolder to tackle it. And Long Beach had a unique thrill. You started fast…you took off down hill into a dark tunnel, and then made the long, clanking ascent to heights that took your breath away.

   They would all seem tame compared with today’s steel monsters with loops and spirals that take you UPSIDE DOWN. But we were unsophisticated in those days.

   We were unsophisticated enough to enjoy the merry go round. Adults on a carrousel? Yes, and if you rode the outside horse, and could lean out far enough, you could grab a ring as you flew by the semaphore. Then half-way round you threw the ring at a grinning devil’s face. But not if you caught a BRASS ring. Hold on to that. That was good for a free ride.

   Because my name is Ferris, everyone expected that I would love the Ferris Wheel. But I hated it. Going up was not so bad, but coming over the top was scary, and descending with everything behind you and no visible means of support was more frightening than I could take. I learned to avoid it.

   My friends here in Central California had their amusement park in Santa Cruz, “The Coney Island” of the west coast. And, you, you folks in the East had the real Coney Island, with its coasters, its Hot Dogs, the Boardwalk, and its Parachute Drop.

   That was living.

Starbucks -- Continued

New behavior for me.  I took my scooter - before breakfast - to Starbucks for a MORNING coffee: a mocha latte.

I put the large container, appears to be about a pint and half, in the basket on the scooter.  The cup has a lid with a small sipping hole in it.  The scooter has solid, not pneumatic, tires.  The ride is rough.

The rough ride jiggled the latte and it spurted out the hole like the famous blow hole on Kauaii. I left a trail of mocha from Starbucks to the old folks home.  There is still plenty left to sip as I write this.  There will be some left to take to breakfast, and even enough to share a sip with my tablemate.  However, she likes her coffee black... not sweetened nor laced with milk and chocolate. No matter, I will enjoy it.

A note on something completely different: AOL says that the average user checks his email about five times a day. That sounds about right.  I may be a bit above average.  (Write me.)

Meet the Press

Even after years and years and YEARS, Meet the Press, CBS news, on Sundays is still the most prestigious news interview show it seems to me.

I used to listen l-o-n-g ago to find out what the "real story" was in politics, and today I happened upon it.  It is still current and important.  Today: Should U.S. have a political prison in Guantanimo Bay? Is Hillery really going to run for President?  (The answer to both seems to be YES.)

They keep us current, and perhaps they keep us straight.  Every politician knows he may have to answer for his deeds on Sunday, on Meet the Press.

Starbucks

It was Sonya, or Sara, or Karen who said, "I'm sipping a Frappachino right now."  So I had to try one too.  A mint-mocha-chip Frappachino from Starbucks. 

I scootered over, right up to the counter, paid my $4.25, and scootered home with it.  It is sitting by my computer as I write.  I sip it slowly so I don't get a brain-freeze, that shooting pain that you get from super cold drinks in the summer time.

It is delicious.

Movie review -- Lost in Translation

   Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanssen are two bored folks idling in Tokyo, and as such "find" one another.  They have a May-December, very chaste affair.  They end up in bed, naturally, but only to sleep, lightly touching hands.
   They eventually must part, and that is touching, too, but there is little excitement.  For a moment you think they will act like typical movie characters and rush back to one another's arms, but cooler heads prevail.
   I think this is Murray's dullest film since The Razor's Edge in which he wanders around India with the vitality and emotion of a cigar store Indian.
   Some astute press agentry got this nominated for an Oscar, but cooler heads prevailed there too and the award went to some Hobbits. 
   If you want to see a more amusing Bill Murray rent Groundhog Day or Tootsie.  He was better in both.
   On Chucks scale from Ho-Hum to Charming this film: So-so

Here it is Wednesday

   It is one day later than second entry below regarding the frustration of constant staff changes, and this evening we were called together to hear that the new administrator, appointed last week, has been moved to another facility.  No word when the new, new administrator will be named. 

   See, I told you...

   aaarrrrgggghh !

Alternate Endings

   In my recent movie review of 50 First Dates and Something's Gotta Give I was critical of the endings of those movies.  Monponsett made a comment about alternative endings.

    "They did the same thing with Casablanca. Although few people are aware of it, in the Past The Ending part of that film, Humphrey- really a Nazi collaborator- whips out a heretofore yet uninvented Stinger shoulder held anti-aircraft missile and brings down the getaway plane into a fiery Mediterranean crash.

In another classic, Old Yeller also returns to the house, sheds the bullet-proof faux fur jacket he had been wearing, and bites the hand that shot him.
Comment from monponsett - 6/7/05 11:56 AM "

I responded with an alternative of my own.

"Right about Casablanca and Old Yeller.  And I much prefer the alternate ending to Bambi, in which Bambi's mother, when shot, is rushed to the animal hospital.  Dr. Doolittle asks her where she hurts and when Bambi's mother says, "I was shot in the ass, but it only hurts when I laugh,"  Dr. Doolittle, Rex Harrison not Eddie Murphy, removes the bullet and saves her life." 

Perhaps you can think of some alternative endings you'd like to see added to certain movies.  Let us hear about them.