Ten Years of California Adventure
Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at 5:30 pmBy Josh
Wow! How did I miss this today? It’s February 8th!! Today’s the tenth anniversary of Disney’s California Adventure theme park!
Here’s the Orange County Register story on it: “Disney park makes impact over 10 years“.
Personally I think the park has its shortcomings – it was cheap from the start, quite frankly – so it’s nice that they’re now investing in renovations and additions. However, I always though that the park had a certain charm to it. I really became quite fond of it in my last few years in California.
At the time it opened I was living in Burbank, and although I had gone to an Employee Preview day in January (see My thoughts on Disney’s California Adventure) I still decided to make the drive down to Orange County on that first Thursday night.
I also wrote about that trip (see Only in California!).
Ten years later I still like my opening:
Imagine an event so special, it’s only taken place seven times over the past 46 years. The next three times it happens, it won’t even be on North America. And I live only 34 miles away from it.
Yesterday, Disney’s California Adventure opened.
Yesterday, I drove down to Anaheim after work.
I mean, c’mon, who knows where the next Stateside Disney Theme Park is going to be? And I’m sure as hell not going to Tokyo DisneySea in 2001, Disney Studios Paris in 2002, or Honk Kong Disneyland in 2005! But I’m here now, so I figured I’d go for it.
Prescient really, as there hasn’t been a new park in the US since!
There hasn’t even been a new one since Hong Kong, and Shanghai Disneyland is still four years out.
Anyway, I took a roll or two of photos that night, too. Here’s one of the Sun Icon fountain, one of my favorite Disney subjects. Sadly it’s on the chopping block and will be removed in the renovations.
Anyway, happy birthday, California Adventure!
Made in the USA
Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at 5:00 amBy Josh
Interesting article about manufacturing in the USA in this week’s Sunday Boston Globe: “Made in the USA“.
Key quote:
Americans make more “stuff” than any other nation on earth, and by a wide margin. According to the United Nations’ comprehensive database of international economic data, America’s manufacturing output in 2009 (expressed in constant 2005 dollars) was $2.15 trillion. That surpassed China’s output of $1.48 trillion by nearly 46 percent. China’s industries may be booming, but the United States still accounted for 20 percent of the world’s manufacturing output in 2009 – only a hair below its 1990 share of 21 percent.
“The decline, demise, and death of America’s manufacturing sector has been greatly exaggerated,” says economist Mark Perry, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “America still makes a ton of stuff, and we make more of it now than ever before in history.” In fact, Americans manufactured more goods in 2009 than the Japanese, Germans, British, and Italians – combined.
Our move to a service economy from a manufacturing economy is clear, and maybe it’s not a bad thing …
Tubular Rail
Friday, February 4, 2011 at 5:00 amBy Josh
I’m going to punish you with some funky transit. It’s from a few months ago, but I just saw it now. It’s called “tubular rail”. Check out: “What The Rail?!?!”
Key quote:
In this vision for an alternative train type, there is no track. Stanchions, 100 feet apart, house rollers that propel the train as it passes. The train doesn’t fall even as it’s nose is suspended unsupported in the same way that a pencil on the edge of a tabletop won’t begin to tip and fall until more than half of it is dangling past the precipice.
Nobody would ever build this, but dang is it kind of cool.
Prototype iPad 2
Friday, February 4, 2011 at 4:55 amBy Josh
Not to be too much Apple, but apparently one of their execs made a little mistake this week.
He (or she) brought a prototype iPad 2 … to a room full of reporters.
Check out: “Unreleased Apple iPad spotted at news event“.
Key quote:
A Reuters eyewitness saw what appeared to be a working model of the next iPad with a front-facing camera at the top edge of the glass screen at a press conference to mark the debut of News Corp’s Daily online paper in New York on Wednesday.
A source with knowledge of the device confirmed its existence, adding that the final release model could have other features. News Corp and Apple declined to comment.
The next version of Apple’s popular tablet computer is expected to be announced in the next few months.
So was this a shrewd plan, or a total goof?
Iconic Images
Wednesday, February 2, 2011 at 12:59 pmBy Josh
Watching Al Jazeera English’s live streaming coverage of the riots in Egypt, I find myself waiting for the iconic image. You know, the one that’ll be on the cover of international newsmagazines, and then end up in history books someday.
That got me to thinking of other images from civil unrest past.
Boston in 1770:
Engraving by Paul Revere
Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859:
Illustration from Harper's Weekly
Birmingham, Alabama in 1963:
Photograph by Bill Hudson
Kent State University in 1970:
Photograph by John Filo
Tiananmen Square in 1989:
Photograph by Jeff Widener
Los Angeles in 1992:
Screenshot from KTLA
Seattle in 1999:
Photography by Steve Kaiser
Egypt Riots
Wednesday, February 2, 2011 at 6:14 amBy Josh
We’re taking the snowday today to watch streaming footage of the Egypt demonstrations on Al Jazeera English. Crazy footage.
It’s amazing to see Tahir Square not just devoid of cars, but packed with people. When we were there in April of 2008 it was wall to wall cars, day and night.
I actually just pulled out my journal from out trip. Apparently I didn’t write one of the stories down, though, so it might be a little off, but here goes:
Steve, Liz and I took a taxi home from dinner one night, and got an English-speaking driver. He was chatty, as most taxi drivers are, regardless of locale, and at one point motioned to his glove compartment. He said he had a gun in there, and if he ever saw President Mubarak he would shoot him.
He seemed pretty serious.
It was startling to hear, but made sense with all of the stories we were hearing of rising food prices and rampant unemployment. The people’s desperation was palpable.
Trying to imagine that city now, almost three year later, sadly these riots make perfect sense.
Times on Race
Tuesday, February 1, 2011 at 8:32 amBy Josh
Fascinating article in the New York Times about the large number of multiracial college students these days: “Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above“.
Did you know that in the United States right now one in seven new marriages is between spouses of different races or ethnicities?
Key quote:
Many young adults of mixed backgrounds are rejecting the color lines that have defined Americans for generations in favor of a much more fluid sense of identity. Ask Michelle López-Mullins, a 20-year-old junior and the president of the Multiracial and Biracial Student Association, how she marks her race on forms like the census, and she says, “It depends on the day, and it depends on the options.”
Maybe this is hitting me more strongly because I’m half-way through The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America by Nicholas Lemann for a class at USM. It’s a terribly interesting book that I think every college student should have to read. I want to talk more about it here soon, but for now, just go read the Times article.
The Tiger Woods Dubai Update
Monday, January 31, 2011 at 6:00 pmBy Josh
Not much more to this story than the title: “Tiger Woods’ Dubai golf course development officially halted“.
I’m kind of surprised it took them this long …
Text Kills Suicide Bomber by Accident
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 9:20 amBy Josh
If this is real this is awesome!
Check out: “Black Widow attempted New Year Moscow attack but blew herself up by mistake“.
Security sources believe a spam message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her but nobody else.
Wow.
Liz in the News!
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 7:45 amBy Josh
Liz in the news! Check out today’s Portland Press Herald article about her not job fair but “networking night”: “Immigrants network at international job fair“.
25 Years since the Challenger
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 5:00 amBy Josh
Wow.
Today’s the 25th anniversary of STS-51-L, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Orange You Glad It’s Not Red?
Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 9:21 amBy Josh
ALERT!
ALERT!
The US Department of Homeland Security is changing the “Homeland Security Advisory System” a/k/a the Terror Alert: “Homeland Security to replace color-coded terror alerts“.
The system, as it was established in March of 2002, is “intended to create a common vocabulary, context, and structure for an ongoing national discussion about the nature of the threats that confront the homeland and the appropriate measures that should be taken in response. It seeks to inform and facilitate decisions appropriate to different levels of government and to private citizens at home and at work.”
Currently the Threat Level is “Yellow”, except for on planes, where it’s “Orange”. As in, “High Risk of Terrorist Attacks”. It has been since 2006.
That informs me that I shouldn’t travel. Shoot, I wouldn’t want to travel were the level “Yellow” – “Significant Risk of Terrorist Attacks”.
Key quote from the article:
“The old color-coded system taught Americans to be scared, not prepared,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson , D-Miss., the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee. “Each and every time the threat level was raised, very rarely did the public know the reason, how to proceed, or for how long to be on alert.”
Now that makes sense.
New California Adventure Posters
Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 5:05 amBy Josh
One of my favorite things about Disney is the attraction posters from the theme parks.
With California Adventure getting a new design and new facelift, they’ve made new posters:
Check out: “New Attraction Posters Paint a Fresh Vision of Paradise Pier“.
Apple Magic Glove
Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 5:00 amBy Josh
Not that it’s set in stone, by any means, but Apple was just granted patent for a new glove system, as reported by Apple patent watchdog patentlyapple: “Apple Wins Patent for a High Tactility (Magic) Glove System“.
I know with my new iPhone the “tactile feedback” through even light gloves “impedes proper operation”.
I’ll be psyched if this becomes reality.
Naming Rights
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 5:30 pmBy Josh
I just read a blog post about the possibility of selling naming rights to infrastructure that was cute enough, but then they made a good jab at the KFC Yum! Center and I had to share it.
Check out: “Should We Sell Naming Rights to Infrastructure?”
The joke:
But once the commercialization process is in place, standards inevitably start to slip. Just look at sporting facilities: one day you’re walking to august Wrigley Field, the next day you’re heading to the KFC Yum! Center, looking for your dignity. (It’s always in the last place you look.)
You might remember I poked fun of that name back in November (see KFC Yum! Center).
“Meat Filling” Lawsuit
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 8:25 amBy Josh
Wow, so I don’t feel like going to Taco Bell any time soon.
Have you seen the new lawsuit that contends their “beef” is actually “taco meat filling” and that their ground beef “seasonings” are really “extenders”?
Check out: “Taco Bell meat? Beef, says firm. Filling, says suit.”
Key quote:
“In reality, a substantial majority of the filling is comprised of substances other than beef,” the lawsuit alleges. And those seasonings?
“Those ingredients are not added for flavor, but rather to increase the volume of the product,” the suit charges. “These ingredients are binders and extenders such as ‘isolated oat product.’ “
For future reference, “taco meat filling”, according to the USDA, must contain at least 40 percent fresh meat.
Gah!
Nope, I don’t feel like going to Taco Bell any time soon.
Ugly New CMP Logo
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 5:00 amBy Josh
I opened up my Central Maine Power bill last night (and yes, the bill is higher with these new smart meters) and found an ugly new logo inside.
Not that the old logo was stellar, but it was classic in a kind of Paul Rand way. “Paul Rand-lite”, perhaps.
Apparently the new logo is an alignment with the logo of parent company Iberdrola USA.
In fact, I didn’t even realize that Energy East had been renamed “Iberdrola USA”, and that apparently happened in December of 2009. Then again, I haven’t paid too much attention to my energy company, I suppose.
All-in-all it’s too bad that yet another distinct logo is going by the wayside for something that’s got ugly gradients and no silhouetting. And is that a drop of sunshine? Really?!
Dubai’s World Islands are Sinking
Sunday, January 23, 2011 at 5:00 amBy Josh
Remember The World islands in Dubai? We actually talked about them three years ago today (see The World).
Well, according to reports from Friday, it’s sinking: “Luxury Dubai development sinking.”
Of course, this all comes from a lawsuit against Nakheel, the state-run developer on the islands, but still, it’s quite possible.
