So for a solid week, NBC was airing commercials about a news story coming up about Disneyland. I quote, because I have it recorded when they played the commercial during my soap opera:
"(Picture of castle) Disneyland: (video of teacups spinning) a place (Minnie Mouse taking a picture with some teenage girls) where millions escape (boy with mouse ears on his dad's shoulders, dissolves into video of people on Astro Orbitor) into the world of fantasy, (page curls up into aerial shot of the plaza at the north end of main street) but is the magic kingdom (black and white closeup on a datebook someone's flipping pages in) receiving (black and white closeup of a male hand writing in the datebook) special privileges to (back to color, mouse ear balloons) maintain that fantasy? (Chuck Henry standing across the street from a Disney building in Burbank, NBC had to drive almost half a mile to get that shot!) Chuck Henry (small plane banking right over a residential area) uncovers what's happening (NBC ad) above (back to a castle shot, flanked by blue and logos as are all future images) the Happiest (the castle shot changes to a shot of a crowd with a monorail track in the background) Place on Earth. (Same plane as before, flying toward the camera from a hilly background) Thursday on the Channel (Mickey in flowers in front of the Main Street train station) 4 news at 11."
That's 16 images in 15 seconds, with at least three different transition techniques between them.
Well, they said that there was something going on above Disneyland. Another commercial, which I deleted without thinking about it, says that this privilege is not given to any other place, including a nuclear power plant or LAX (the Los Angeles International Airport, never did figure out where they got X from International, but that's a subject for another post).
So, I'm thinking, what could Disneyland get that other people don't? A no fly zone was my first thought, but then I thought, "what would LAX doooo if it had a no fly zone around it???" Become a new NASCAR venue?
My next thought was maybe they can keep their nightly fireworks display even though it's illegal (I'm not sure if it's illegal there or not, this is just my train of thought). Why would a nuclear power plant want to have fireworks, though? Or LAX for that matter?
So I bit. I watched the show. (Well, technically, I had MythTV record it, fast forwarded until I saw Disneyland, and watched just that segment. I fooled them!)
So what was this thing that no one else can have? It's a no fly zone after all. You can't go closer than 3 miles to the center of the parks unless you're above 3,000 feet. It's supposed to be for security, but the newscasters say it's probably to keep people from flying banner advertisements above the millions of park guests and keep sightseeing helicopters away. (I'd like to point out that they say that Disney "won't talk about it," but they display on screen a statement from the Parks and Resorts spokesman.)
There seems to be some debate over whether there is a credible threat to the parks. The internet tells me that "Counterterrorism officials said the Disney parks have come up in interviews with al Qaeda operatives. Pictures and information about the parks have been found during some terror sweeps overseas, they say." but yet other sources say that there is no credible threat. (Source) Lack of communication here? I can totally see the theme parks being targets, though. On Halloween night of 2001, Knott's Scary Farm was nearly empty because of a threat against it, even though the tickets were sold out in pre-sale.
Of course, with a draw like Disneyland, I can't blame them for not wanting advertisers over their parks either. The internet claims that, "At its height, the Orlando air wars daily featured biplanes towing banners, blimps and single-wing skywriters competing for attention." (Source)
Now, the internet tells me that there are other places that have no fly zones, "including President Bush's Texas ranch, nuclear submarine bases and stockpiles of sarin gas and other weapons of mass destruction." Also, "While the bill had originally offered flight protections only to some sports stadiums during games, it now forced the FAA to put the no-fly zones over the entertainment giant's parks as well." So that means that we can add stadiums during games to the list. Also add the Valdez terminal of the Alaska oil pipeline. (Source for all)
The internet also tells me that since the no fly zone came into effect, it's been challenged by conservatives who want to fly anti-homosexuality banners over the park. (Source) I can't say I'm disappointed that those efforts were blocked, that's the last thing I'd want my school-aged child to see while at Disneyland.
My conclusions:
1. No one's being hurt except for the aerial equivalent of pop-up window advertisers.
2. I believe that there has been and continues to be a credible threat to the parks.
3. The idea that LAX should have a 3-mile radius under-3k no-fly zone is ridiculous.
4. The idea that the Las Vegas strip should have a 3-mile radius under-3k no-fly zone (the news story says, "not even the Las Vegas Strip, which has a denser concentration of people...") is also ridiculous. If you look at this map, you'll see that if you put a three-mile radius around the strip, it would nullify the McCarran Airport.
5. The idea that the San Onofre nuclear reactor should have a 3-mile radius under-3k no-fly zone is probably a good idea.
6. The claim that Disney is the only commercial operation to have a no-fly zone is a lie.
7. NBC's 11pm news ratings must be dropping.
So, that's my take on "the Magic Kingdom getting special privileges to maintain that fantasy."
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Yahoo answers
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Hey, wait a minute....
Now, I know that not many people are checking into their finances at 11:54pm Pacific, but I want to! I know that my credit card company does weekly maintenance downtime on Mondays, which always confuses me because it's still Sunday in my head (they're Eastern Time). So I went there today, and I was like, "Huh? It's Sunday night already?" (Don't scare me, I have homework due Monday morning!)
Both my bank and my credit card company are down!
The bank says:
Both my bank and my credit card company are down!
The bank says:
Our Web site is temporarily unavailable due to a scheduled technology upgrade.
Bill payments and transfers scheduled during this period will be initiated as scheduled.
We regret any inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding.
Do not be alarmed, they'll still be taking your money.
The credit card company says:
Our site is currently unavailable while we update our system.
We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest that you check back later today to view your account information. If you have an urgent account servicing need, you can contact our customer service representatives at 1-800-951-6951, 24 hours a day.
We look forward to your future use of Online Account Services.
However, when they do their actually scheduled weekly downtime, it says something to the effect of "customer service reps can't access your information during this downtime" which is missing in this message. Are they going to have downtime again tomorrow night?
So, this makes me curious about our store credit card, so I go to their website and find:Color me confused... (that's a shade of blue I think.) It's like the whole interweb is hiding our money...We are sorry, but we are experiencing technical difficulties at this time. Please try back later.
If you have questions you may contact a Web Support Representative at 1-800-298-4240. Our representatives are available:
Web Support is closed for Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and Easter Sunday.
- Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.CT
- Saturday and Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.CT
MythTV
I <3 MythTV. Even though I have live-in tech support (aka my husband) I took it upon myself to try to solve some of my own problems, since I use the media server more than Charles does. =)
I figured out that our transcoding wasn't working because the default settings were not to MPEG-4 as one might expect. Easy fix once I found it.
The other thing I fixed was the channels. An auto scan of channels over-writes the data downloaded from Zap2It, so I deleted and re-downloaded the channels and listings.
Now if only the time stopped drifting...
Credit card charged
I like this idea of faxing in requests. My credit card was charged on the Friday the 20th for those requests I faxed on Wednesday the 18th. I bet they'll be here lots quicker than the stuff I requested from the social security administration and from Los Angeles county! They even respond to emails quickly, that must mean they're not horribly understaffed! They already have the database online, and my request has the internal document numbers...
Must... be... patient...
Hard, isn't it? I feel like I've dried up all the online leads for now, until those documents come in....
Any day now!
Must... be... patient...
Hard, isn't it? I feel like I've dried up all the online leads for now, until those documents come in....
Any day now!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Manitoba Requests Out
A family friend has already done some looking into my husband's family, which is really cool. It's given me a lot to work with now that I'm starting to turn that way. (I'm not giving up my family, of course, just temporarily working with what's available online first while I finish reading the new book I purchased, Finding Your Mexican Ancestors.)
My mother-in-law's family originates in part from Manitoba, Canada. Their Vital Statistics Agency is wonderful. You can pay $25 (Canadian dollars) to send in a form and have them do the search for you, or you can search their database online and pay only $12 for records if you print out their order form from their database search. It's easy to do, super convenient, and half the price! What more could you ask for? Well, I suppose you could ask for it to be able to search the "mother's maiden name" field as well as the "surname" field in the same query. But other than that...
So yesterday, April 18th, I faxed in my order for 11 different documents, including birth, marriage, and death documents. There are actually a few more that I found in the database that I'd like to order, but that can wait until next month. I've used up my genealogy budget for this month.
Point is, if you have any births 100+ years ago, marriages 80+ years ago, or deaths 70+ years ago that took place in Manitoba, Canada, you should click here. If you want to search the database directly to save some money, click on "Search the database" on the left of that page, or click directly here.
My mother-in-law's family originates in part from Manitoba, Canada. Their Vital Statistics Agency is wonderful. You can pay $25 (Canadian dollars) to send in a form and have them do the search for you, or you can search their database online and pay only $12 for records if you print out their order form from their database search. It's easy to do, super convenient, and half the price! What more could you ask for? Well, I suppose you could ask for it to be able to search the "mother's maiden name" field as well as the "surname" field in the same query. But other than that...
So yesterday, April 18th, I faxed in my order for 11 different documents, including birth, marriage, and death documents. There are actually a few more that I found in the database that I'd like to order, but that can wait until next month. I've used up my genealogy budget for this month.
Point is, if you have any births 100+ years ago, marriages 80+ years ago, or deaths 70+ years ago that took place in Manitoba, Canada, you should click here. If you want to search the database directly to save some money, click on "Search the database" on the left of that page, or click directly here.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Emergency Alert System
I found this amusing for some reason. I opened up an I Love Lucy episode on MythTv, only to find a newscast isntead. It was a live shot of a memorial type service being held at Virginia Tech. I watched for a few minutes, and then there was an emergency alert system weekly test right during some important-looking guy's speech! They interrupted my interruption to my recording...
I would have thought there'd be something in place to prevent that kind of timing! What if it was an actual emergency instead of a press conference, and then a weekly test of the emergency alert system interrupts it... the very thought irritates me for some reason.
I would have thought there'd be something in place to prevent that kind of timing! What if it was an actual emergency instead of a press conference, and then a weekly test of the emergency alert system interrupts it... the very thought irritates me for some reason.
Monday, April 2, 2007
The dangers of modern society...
So I bought myself a cute little chain charm bracelet at Disneyland last week...
Charles and I both have silver passes that get us discounts, but they don't like it when you use someone else's credit card for your discounted merchandise. One of my sisters carries cash, and she paid as she went. My other sister doesn't carry cash (which is good, she'd lose it) so I put everything on my check card and she was going to pay me at the end of the day. (I mention this because I normally wouldn't have even looked at the receipts that carefully.) I was going through my receipts to add up how much my sister owed me, and found out that my bracelet came with a warning label. Not anywhere near the bracelet of course, but only after you buy it and read the receipt. It says:
"WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm."
Lovely, huh? I think it would be amusing to try to return it and say "I want my money back because I'm going to have reproductive harm if I wear this!" Too bad I like the bracelet more than I fear the warning!
Anyhow, just wanted to remind everyone to be careful what they wear... oh, and don't eat bracelets! =P
Charles and I both have silver passes that get us discounts, but they don't like it when you use someone else's credit card for your discounted merchandise. One of my sisters carries cash, and she paid as she went. My other sister doesn't carry cash (which is good, she'd lose it) so I put everything on my check card and she was going to pay me at the end of the day. (I mention this because I normally wouldn't have even looked at the receipts that carefully.) I was going through my receipts to add up how much my sister owed me, and found out that my bracelet came with a warning label. Not anywhere near the bracelet of course, but only after you buy it and read the receipt. It says:
"WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm."
Lovely, huh? I think it would be amusing to try to return it and say "I want my money back because I'm going to have reproductive harm if I wear this!" Too bad I like the bracelet more than I fear the warning!
Anyhow, just wanted to remind everyone to be careful what they wear... oh, and don't eat bracelets! =P
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Disneyland again =)
I had to get in one more trip before our Spring Break blackout days, so Charles suggested that I go during the week sometime. I would have felt pretty silly going by myself, so I invited my sisters to come too.
We had a really good time. First we went to California Adventure. We got fast passes for Soaring Over California (which is awesome), went to see the Disney Animation's Turtle Talk with Crush and Animation Academy, then returned to Soaring Over California, then went to see the Aladdin Musical Spectacular, which was also very good.
Then we went to eat at Disneyland, went to the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jungle Cruise, and the Tiki Room. We did some shopping in between, and eventually made our way to the photo shop on main street.There's a new photo service that I really like. They give you a card that gets scanned by each photographer in the park, so you show them the card at the photo shops and they pull up all your pictures, rather than having a ticket for each picture. Very cool, we bought some pictures of the three of us, including one to give to my parents. There's a picture from way back (I was like 8, maybe) of the three of us at Disneyland, and we wanted to recreate it but they don't have a photography place anymore. That and we weren't feeling silly enough to buy mouse ears either!
So anyway, after the pictures, we watched the Parade of Dreams at 7pm. There were a ton of people already, so Irma and I decided that we should camp out for the fireworks at 9:30pm. Martha and Cyndi went off to try to get on a ride or two in the meantime, while Irma and I saved seats. We got an awesome spot almost directly in front of the castle. =)
Then Martha and Cyndi rode Indiana Jones, which they had a fast pass for. Then we went back to a shop for a hat that Martha had her eye on before but didn't get, then we came home.
Pretty good day, if you ask me!
Pictures below:
My sisters:
Martha and her daughter Cyndi:
And again:
The three of us:
And again =):
Waiting for the Aladdin show:
On the Jungle Cruise:
We had a really good time. First we went to California Adventure. We got fast passes for Soaring Over California (which is awesome), went to see the Disney Animation's Turtle Talk with Crush and Animation Academy, then returned to Soaring Over California, then went to see the Aladdin Musical Spectacular, which was also very good.
Then we went to eat at Disneyland, went to the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jungle Cruise, and the Tiki Room. We did some shopping in between, and eventually made our way to the photo shop on main street.There's a new photo service that I really like. They give you a card that gets scanned by each photographer in the park, so you show them the card at the photo shops and they pull up all your pictures, rather than having a ticket for each picture. Very cool, we bought some pictures of the three of us, including one to give to my parents. There's a picture from way back (I was like 8, maybe) of the three of us at Disneyland, and we wanted to recreate it but they don't have a photography place anymore. That and we weren't feeling silly enough to buy mouse ears either!
So anyway, after the pictures, we watched the Parade of Dreams at 7pm. There were a ton of people already, so Irma and I decided that we should camp out for the fireworks at 9:30pm. Martha and Cyndi went off to try to get on a ride or two in the meantime, while Irma and I saved seats. We got an awesome spot almost directly in front of the castle. =)
Then Martha and Cyndi rode Indiana Jones, which they had a fast pass for. Then we went back to a shop for a hat that Martha had her eye on before but didn't get, then we came home.
Pretty good day, if you ask me!
Pictures below:
My sisters:
Martha and her daughter Cyndi:
And again:
The three of us:
And again =):
Waiting for the Aladdin show:
On the Jungle Cruise:
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