Now that Steve Jobs Has Passed Away...

...we will forever be indebted to the many ingenious ways he had changed technology and brought it to a more personal level for all of us in the world.  


Here's a Simpsons episode parodying Apple entitled MyPod and Broomsticks.  First aired on November 2008, it's not exactly a tribute of sorts, more like a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the consumptive nature of iPod buyers and the tens of billions Apple/Mapple must be making out of all of us.  I think it's still an episode Steve Jobs would  have approved of.






And later when Lisa accrues way too much bill for her song downloads, she travels to the bottom of the ocean in a submarine to meet Steve Jobs himself in his signature black semi-turtleneck sweater.  Yes, just to underline Apple's tradition of secrecy prior to unveiling its latest innovation, Mapple's headquarters is located deep in the ocean, and can be accessed by plugging into its USB slot. 

In all of these, thank you, Mr. Steve Jobs.

Self-Reference It Some More

Until yesterday, I thought you could only get The Simpsons on cable, which we don't have, or through pirated but crystal-clear DVDs, whose mecca in Quiapo Manila Mayor Lim recently had closed--for how long, we're not sure.


Anyway, that was a pretty stupid assumption, give up just because RPN 9 stopped airing the episodes.  Hello, we have Internet for the past three years, and practically everything is on offer there: baby chairs, comic books, mineral make-up, keychains, cookies, even ancient episodes of The Twilight Zone.  So how much more our beloved Simpsons?  So I go typing watch Simpsons online, and what do you know, not one, not two, but a dozen sites stream Simpsons episodes, some of them even up-to-date, although come to think of it: The Ned-liest Catch (the finale of Season 22, where Edna Krabapple and Ned Flanders hook up) was aired last May.  Still, better late than never.


After gorging on Simpsons reruns yesterday, I stumble on this: a very dark, gritty, opening sequence that unapologetically self-references the production process of the animation series.  Suddenly, the sequence panning the not-so-bucolic, anything-goes town of Springfield veers into a scene from inside the Simpsons TV set, revealing a sweatshop somewhere in Asia where animation stills are painstakingly drawn under dire conditions, and where other outrageous procedures for manufacturing various Simpsons merchandise: Bart dolls, DVD sets, etc.  

Un-Paintballing at the Ruins of Diplomat Hotel in Baguio

1. Just got back from a three-day vacation from Baguio.  Me and Edge have turned five.  Whoopee!


2. For the first time visited Diplomat Hotel, thanks to a signboard near the Lourdes Grotto (which was our original itenerary).


3.  The signboard said "This way to Prayer Mountain", and because we were in the mood to pray (seriously), we trekked a whole kilometer to this so-called prayer mountain.


4. Turns out we wouldn't be in a particularly prayerful mood since there is just a hotel, or ruins of it.

5. The lady at Ibay's Silver Shop back at the Grotto did warn us that there is just this old hotel called Diplomat Hotel at Prayer Mountain, this closed-down hotel now a haunted house, which according to her, is always featured in reality TV shows during Halloween.


6.  Just when we thought it'd be a scary place, we find that there are well-taken care of flowers all around the area, and teenagers in full battlegear cosplay making poses in front of their super duper DSLR camera.


7.  For our part, me and Edge have no imaging device whatsoever.  I purposely left my point-and-shoot camera at home, I accidentally left my cellphone with just a VGA camera at home, while Edge's own cellphone is only good for texting, as an alarm clock, and a flashlight.


8.  We didn't need the flashlight because it was broad daylight.


9.  In a span of one hour, more people (living, hopefully not deceased) appeared at the rooftop of Diplomat Hotel where me and Edge have cozied up in a corner.  They all proceed to take pictures of the beautiful 360 degrees scenery of Baguio.


10. You can tell Diplomat Hotel was grand: it had two big fountains, bathtubs and fireplaces in some of the rooms, traces of parquet flooring, and a grand driveway.  But now, it's all stripped off walls, wet floors, and general decay.  


11. Three days later, back home, I Google this Diplomat Hotel and what happened to it.  The name Tony Agpaoa surfaces, a psychic physician who supervised the hotel and then died of a heart attack in 1987.  That's when the hotel started to fall into disuse.


12.  Agpaoa rings a bell.  I ask Mami if this Agpaoa is the same guy to whom she had brought Ditse, her sister, when she was sick.  I remember her telling me how they went to a posh hotel in Baguio in those days, seeking psychic-medical help there.  I remember her exclaiming over the minibar and how their friend told them they can have anything, courtesy of the hotel management.


13. Sure enough, it is the same Agpaoa. 


14.  I tell her about how Diplomat Hotel looks like now.  I even show her pictures though she can't remember if it's the same hotel.  Anyway, a lot has changed, too hard for the mind to comprehend in a single glance.


15.  Apparently, enterprising people also use the hotel grounds as their battle area for paintball combats.  There were no paintballers that day.  I don't remember seeing paint splatters either, but that's probably because the paint is water-based.


16.  Edge tells me the teenagers with the DSLR could come up with better angles.  Also, that the hotel grounds would be good for a pre-nuptial shoot.  


17.  We leave the hotel grounds before it gets darker and foggier, and because we still haven't had lunch.

* * * 

Mr. DeMartino: And why are we going to engage in simulated combat? Daria?


Daria: Because no high school education is complete until you've chased your fellow students around the woods with toy guns?




-from Daria the Hunter, Episode #202, year televised 1998

Dance, Dance, Dance with OK Go's New Interactive Music Video

Maybe it's unintentional, maybe it's deliberate, but US band OK Go is best remembered for their quirky music videos (the treadmill dancefest, the rube goldberg machine, the pingpong match) more than the songs themselves.  As if the songs get drowned in the visual style of the videos they happen to be in.  Which is weird because there are a lot of great videos out there, both texturally and textually rich, say Madonna's Bedtime Story, or Chemical Brothers' Let Forever Be, and we all know how the songs go. 


Here, however, at last, is a song by OK Go that's not forgettable: All is Not Lost.  Finally, I can sing along and I don't think I'll forget the chorus any time soon.


All is Not Lost is still quirky and geeky as only OK Go can go, and the guys are back to doing what they do best: dancing.  Not on treadmills again, but on the glass floor this time, with the Pilobolus dance group, wearing light teal green unitards, slinking ever so smoothly in incredibly choreographed and synchronized movements. 


Then, because the video plays best in Google Chrome, the window splits all of a sudden, and the next thing you know you're watching multiple windows, with people seemingly falling like leaves, etc, and then spelling out ALL IS NOT LOST, plus the message you typed in earlier.  I did tell you the music video is interactive, right?  Guys proposing to their girlfriends can use this interactive messaging feature to the fullest.


OK Go is dedicating All is Not Lost to the people of Japan who have been recently ravaged by the tsunamis last March.


Just head on to www.allisnotlo.st, type your message, wait for the page to load, and dance along.

Hand Puppets for Your Sanity

We've seen Mel Gibson loony before (in Conspiracy Theory) and he was wonderful, if not all the more charming.  Why do we have a weakness for unstable people?  Is it the urge to fix them up?  Is it the fact that said loony people are too busy being loony to notice our own flaws that's why we take them in, confident we will be undetected?   

Anyway. 

Here's the trailer to the Jodie Foster-directed comedy-drama The Beaver shown in theaters last May 2011.  Here Mel Gibson (playing Walter Black) is once again out of sorts and depressed--no conspiracy involved though.  Just his wife kicking him out, and his toy company steadily falling  in shambles.  Then he stumbles upon a beaver hand puppet in a dumpster, puts it on, and starts talking to himself and later to everyone else through the gruffy-voiced puppet and in the process gets himself back on track.

Nothing like a good beaver hand puppet to refresh your mind and purge your demons.

Thankfully, Walter does not to start a ventriloquist act with his new beaver toy, for that would be creepy.  But he gets the beaver puppet talking all the same, his own mouth visibly forming the words with no attempt to throw his voice whatsoever.  So the "sane" people are faced with a dilemma: do they insist it's Walter they're talking to, or do they play along?  I say we play along.

Anyway.

The Beaver will have a limited release again starting August 10 at Ayala Cinemas (Glorietta, Trinoma, Greenbelt).

Skinny Steve Rogers and Skinny Love [free song inside]

Four months after I posted Captain America Inspires Skinny People Everywhere in this blog, I've been getting lots of hits from keywords people type in their quest for answers. Keywords such as "captain america skinny" (the most popular), or "captain america thin" or "captain america 2011 skinny" or something more detailed such as "chris evans in captain america small body."





Who are these people? Who are these people who have seen the movie, and then two hours later, came out, intrigued by the incredible transformation of puny Steve Rogers to hunky Captain America with his mighty shield that they lovingly type later on their keyboards "capitao america skinny" [sic]?





Skinny folks too, I guess. Because I don't see why gym-fit guys would want to search for that kind of thing, unless of course they're just gloating, Ha! I'm muscled, I've always been this way, there is no Before version!


Then again, I might be wrong. I'm just assuming that it's the thin folks who would be most intrigued, for the same reason that skinny me took to writing that entry last March. I was awed, I can't help it, so shoot me. I have tried a high-protein diet, yoga, and when that failed, sleeping my ass off the whole day so I don't burn off whatever calories I still have in store. So when a serum with the amazing properties of beefing up the scrawniest of peeps with 100% success presents itself, then who are we to decline?



I'm not really asking for superhero body proportions. That's just not me. All I'm asking is a little meat, is that too bad?



In the meantime, I'll go grab something to eat. And then maybe actually watch the movie tomorrow or the day after just to see how the SFX people turned Chris Evans into stick-figure Steve Rogers.




Oh, here's Skinny Love by Bon Iver ("good winter" in French), live at the Late Show with David Letterman. (The first time I've seen a performance--(excluding the Japanese taiko drum performances)--with three people going at it on three drums.)



P.S. Speaking of drums, they say "thin as a drum." That's good then, otherwise you got no beat.

Make Love Not Horcruxes

You didn't tell me watching movies in 3D is oh-so-spectacular.  Why didn't you?  Why?  It was so lovely--I wanted to grab hold of something every time a flurry of leaves fell, or say Voldermort's disintegrating face rose up in pieces, and even the Dementors' floaty black dress.  And to think 3D has been around since th 1950s.

Sitting there inside the theater, with the unbendable 3D shades that I had to wear on top of my own eyeglasses, I wished all my loved ones would be able to try it out, assuming I can weather the impossibly high collective cost of the whole cinema-going venture.  Guys, let's all watch in 3D and blow some PhP 3,000 all in one sitting.  But anyway.

For the longest time, I've held off trying it out for fear I'd burst a nerve in my eye, considering Avatar is more than two hours long.  After Avatar, which I only saw at a pirated DVD (ha!), there just weren't good 3D-worthy movies left that I wouldn't mind spending P450 on. 

And then Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came.  It didn't occur to me and Edge to watch the first one in 3D, although come to think of it, we should have had.  Anyway, it's probably all for the best that the first ever 3D film I'd see is the last Harry Potter movie.  And now I feel sad because there won't be any more Harry Potter films after this, and I haven't even read a single book!  Which is why Edge kept explaining things to me as the film went on.

Maybe I will start reading the HP series now, if only for that scene where Professor Minerva McGonagall stands up for Harry and fights Snape.  It turns out, Snape was good after all and on their side, but how could have Professor McGonagall known?  (Click the picture to see McGonagall and Snape at it, courtesy of alienhead.tumblr.com)

Anyway, it was a touching moment for me I actually blinked away a tear or two.  Maybe because I've always been a sucker for grandmother figures (i.e. Ursula in One Hundred Years of Solitude.)  And oh, I loved it when she giggled like a schoolgirl, because she's always wanted to use that spell on the stone sentinels of Hogwarts Castle.

BTW, that Neville Longbottom guy has really grown up, and the sexier for it.  Here's a link to a webpage dedicated particularly to Matthew Lewis' amazing metamorphosis.

http://www.scarlet-clarity.net/2010/12/uber-hawt-menz-monday-36-matthew-lewis.html

* * *

After the film, in which I was teary-eyed, both from sadness and from eye strain, me and Edge went to National Bookstore because I need a pen.  Buying a pen is always a headache for me.  I realize the only writing tools in which my penmanship looks good is Pilot's Hitechpoint V5 signpen (PhP 54) and a properly sharpened and slightly used pencil.  I always use the lack of a good pen as an excuse why I don't write on my journal as often as I did in college, when I would mindlessly buy one Pilot signpen after another.

Ballpoint pens don't give my handwriting justice, although now that I don't have much choice as I'm much too stingy nowadays to give in to a uber-expensive signpen, the ballpen will do.

You can tell a lot about a person from what they mindlessly/mindfully write on those scratch pads where you testdrive your prospective ballpens.

This is one side of the paper--busy and tangled--an outpouring of people's minds.  There's nowhere to write so I use the other side.  And this is what I find: Make Love Not Horcruxes.

So that's how you spell it.

Build City | Stores with Toys

Build City, at Level 4 of Shangri-La Plaza Mall, is all about building and construction kits.  

So besides the classic and perfunctory LEGO blocks, Build City carries toys by PLAYMOBIL (those miniature plastic figures you can detach from head to foot), SCHLEICH (realistically-painted animal plastic figures), imported from Germany.  At Build City, they've color-coded the price for the SCHLEICH figures: PhP 149 is the cheapest and the prices understandably go up as the models become more bigger and intricate.  

At that rate, a simple menagerie of barn animals will cost you thousands.  But then, some people apparently dig that.  Schleich also makes the Smurf figures, which is good now that those 80's blue-skinned folks are back with a movie of their own.

There's also HERPA (miniature toy vehicles), D-TORSO (those 3D cardboard jigsaw models, you turn into a horse or a whale or even a human skeleton), and many more.  

There's even a free play area for kids, with loads of Lego blocks lying there, just waiting for tiny hands to snap them into place.  

Build City is on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/buildcity

Cosplayers, Attack!

Say what you will about cosplayer and their not having anything better to do, and you'll get a mouthful from its devotees.  

And why not a kick too?




After all, so much other foolish things are happening, like countries waging wars with each other.  

On the other hand, the combats these costumed and well-armed anime-wannabes undertake are all bloodless and harm-free, fun on the contrary, and all in the good name of solidarity.  Yey!

Hobbes and Landes | Stores with Toys, Part 1

The next time you're at Shangri-La Plaza Mall, stop by at Hobbes & Landes and Build City at the 4th floor, and be a kid for a while.  Or take your kid there, if you have one.  

 
Hobbes & Landes (no relation to the comic strip, but who knows...) is a specialty store that I suspect carries the kind of toys that Toy Kingdom doesn't.  No, not adult toys.  Kids' toys.  Baby toys, educational toys, construction kits, collectibles.

This being Shangri-La though, the items are uber-expensive.  The only toy under PhP 500 that I could find was portable gameboards by Hasbro--Monopoly, Life, Mastermind, etc.  The Cluedo version has suspect tokens made of plastic, not die-cast metal of miniature people, so I put it back.  But anyway. 

The flagship store is in Fort Bonifacio Global City, and the one they have at Shangri-La is a mere space right beside the escalator, but even so, you immediately become aware that the prices of all the items combined in that tiny floor space cost scads.  I mean, the Perplexus alone costs PhP2,500+, while a regular kailedoscope costs a migraine-inducing PhP 595.  

Still, Hobbes & Landes packs a diverse collection of awesome toys both for kids and the kid and you.  Check out award-winning educational games and puzzles by Smart Games as well as construction kits by Lego and its Japanese-version Nano Block.

Collector items include Domo merchandise, Momo bears, Momiji dolls, Mimobots, designer USB flash drives, various trading cards, even books, binoculars and microscopes, etc.


And should you feel hungry from all that toy-browsing, there's a yogurt store right inside the store.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Why You Should Stay on Dry Land Instead

Just when we thought the legend of the Fountain of Youth has been rehashed far too many times in films, comes the latest installment to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise: On Stranger Tides

In the magical world of Captain Jack Sparrow, the legendary fountain of youth becomes all too plausible, something just beyond the other side of the dark waters if you're willing to cross it.  Sure enough, in the capable hands of our madcap captain, the fountain is easily accessible but, alas, requires a mermaid (a drop of her tears at least) for the water to function.  

So you have the lovely spectacle of extremely mobile mermaids, the quest for the fountain of youth, and two warring factions out to get it.  A simple enough recipe for a Disney movie.  

Blah.

The film's most ironic scene (and perhaps the most laughable too--if not hitting too close to home)--is the part where a third party, a band of men sailing under the Spanish flag, enters frame, and in the name of God, proclaims the Fountain of Youth sacrilegious for only God should dictate death, and so said Spanish army proceeds to smash and rearrange the place.  A bunch of killjoy Christians.

Admittedly, this is my first time to ever watch Pirates of the Caribbean (What!?, First time?!  Have I been living under a rock?).  So really I have no idea what the earlier movies are all about and how they connect to this new one.  The only thing I know is that Pirates.. features Johnny Depp as, well, a pirate, and from the trailers, I can also recall a man with a squid for a face (Well that kind of thing is pretty hard to ignore.)  Now, too, because I happen to be watching with Edge who apparently has seen the other Pirates... movies, from him I now know Jack Sparrow's hatred for water.

Rob Marshall's Stranger Tides is full of the old thrills and tired antics, but unfortunately teaches me nothing new in its chosen realm, whether on seas or dry land.  Still, it was worth watching for the simple unassailable reason of the eccentric Johnny Depp's presence. 

Does this make me want to watch the earlier films?  Maybe, if the onboard TV bus happens to have it on pirated DVD.

A Prebute to George Lucas

-"...What's next for George Lucas?"
- "I'm going to Disneyland.  And then I'm building a ride!"

Because Star Wars fans still can't get forgive George Lucas for birthing the lame prequels that spoiled such a great trilogy.

Sure, the technology was smashing in the prequels, but nothing beats a good, honest, gimmick-free storyline such as in the trilogy.  I, for one, even if had watched the entire franchise in exact chronological order (yes, I'm a late-bloomer), felt the prequels merely pandered and insulted our intelligence, not to mention was too sappy for my tastes.  

Who needs eye candy when it's lame substance?

Naturally Pixellized | Pixellated Nature

Using wooden blocks, Texan artist Shawn Smith pays homage to nature and the 8-bit videogames of our childhood.

Toy Tinkers

After almost a week of silence, this is what I finally come up with?  A vintage cartoon of Donald Duck featuring a snowy landscape when it's frigging summer already. 

Oh well, I had a good laugh (more than one good laugh, of course) watching this episode.

Bring Back the Old Ovaltine, Please

One of my most-prized toys when I was a kid was a set of thumb-sized plastic construction vehicles that came with every can of Ovaltine.  There was a bulldozer, an excavator, a compactor, even a cement-grinder possibly.  They were given by my uncle Ariel who had patiently collected them while he worked in a friend's grocery in Vigan.  The man specifically made sure I had all the vehicles in the set, and I will forever be grateful.

Later, Ovaltine came out with another line--spacecrafts.  Still thumbsized, still colorful plastic, and this time around, there's even a game board which you cut from selected magazines.

I don't know where those toys are now--both the construction vehicles and the spacecrafts.  Me and my sister Neah and cousins had a good time playing with them.  In those days, I had my favorite which was the compactor, and when you're a kid, you don't ask yourself why that particular vehicle or spaceship is your favorite; you just know it.  For the life of me, I can't find a single picture of those Ovaltine toys in Google.  Maybe nobody had thought of taking pictures of them.

Ovaltine doesn't bury freebies in the chocolate powder anymore, for happy, giddy kids to unearth.  Sad, I know.  Those were the carefree 90's when BFAD regulations regarding plastic stuff embedded in food were still lax.  I remember the triumphant joy every time I'd pull out a toy which I still don't have yet, because, of course, it'd be a bummer if I got the same darn thing each time. 

* * *

Needless to say, I'm an Ovaltine child, not a Milo kid.  Ovaltine had toy freebies  Milo, on the other hand, appealed to your sports-minded senses.  The choice was clear-cut for me.

In those days, the commercials for Milo's Sports Clinic featured perfectly good-natured kids who can competently spin a basketball on the tip of their thumb.  Ovaltine didn't have a Sports Clinic at all, but then again, when you've got spaceships and construction vehicles to occupy your hands and mind, who needs to know how to dribble scientifically or shoot a ball like a pro? 

So simplistically you might say Milo fueled the body while Ovaltine, the imagination.  Milo was for athletes, Ovaltine was for geeks.
    
Of course, looking back now, I wish there was a part of me which could have gotten interested in sports even just a little, because, dang, I sink in pools and can't properly return a gently bouncing ping-pong ball.  (Lesson: never ever underestimate ping-pong again.) 
Now that the Azkals are suddenly getting everyone to kick and chase after balls, I wish I could do that too without looking like I'm going to asphyxiate every five minutes.  Suddenly, that ball spinning feat on the tip of the thumb looks very appealing.  I wonder, if kids drank Ovaltine and Milo alternately, would they grow up to be a geeky athlete? 

* * *

The last time I checked at the supermarkets, Ovaltine has a new look.  There are no more Ovaltine cans; now they come in tall glass jars, with a nice gold Swiss cross.  And because there are no commercials touting toy freebies inside Ovaltine jars, you can bet there'd be nada no matter how deep you dig.  Which sucks, if you ask me.

From The Micallef Programme | Job Interview and Toy Dinosaur

So I Tried to Buy a Custom Domain and the Purchase Did Not Go Through

...and I ended up not having a live blog for a couple of days, so now I'm back to publishing Toyspedia in Blogger.

Will try to get a domain again, once the trauma of seeing the blog up and gone all of a sudden subsides.


In the meantime, forgive me for this unplanned hiatus.

Magic Highway, anyone?

An excerpt of Disney's TV cartoon episode entitled Magic Highway USA aired back in 1958,

Very imaginative and visionary, exhausting almost every possible improvement that can be made in the name of transportation.  So you see, Disney isn't just good at inserting those subliminal messages.  They make pretty exciting predictions too.  Sure, we're still a looong way off from mass-produced flying cars and tubular highways and the other 95% of mouthful of innovations presented in the clip, but Maglev cars, entertainment system, GPS, hybrid cars, web conference, etc--they're all here now.


Now if only we could think up of something to nix road rage once and for all.

* * *

Take note of 3:58 though where the narrator makes a slight slip: On entering the city the family separates. Father to his office. Mother and son to the shopping center.  Sure.  All the working moms out there would be glad to hear that.

Kooky | Film

Puppets and props designed by Jakub Dvorksy of Amanita Design, who brought us Samorost and Machinarium.

How to Survive in Star City in 9 Easy Steps

The last time I set foot on Star City, I think Fidel V. Ramos was still the president. 
Back then, me and my sis didn't get on a single ride, we just played inside a playpen filled with colorful plastic balls, kinda like Sheldon Cooper in Big Bang Theory but without the genius.

As a rule I don't ride the really scary rides at theme parks, scary meaning any ride which leaves me feeling helpless about an otherwise avoidable danger.

That means bump cars are okay.

Still, my latest visit to Star City (courtesy of complimentary ride-all-you-can tickets) didn't stop me from riding the Star Flyer, despite the news two years ago about the man who died while riding it (Star City maintains it was suicide), barely two months after the inverted roller coaster ride premiered in the theme park.

Anyway, here are 7 things you need to know in order to survive in Star City or any theme park for that matter.

1. Pack light.  Star City doesn't have lockers (yet), and while they do have a temporary baggage counter (for when you get on a water-based or inverted ride for instance), sometimes they just let you hug your bag while you hold on for dear life.

My friend: Excuse me, what do I do with my bag?
Ride operator: [bluntly]  You just hug it, Ma'am.

So bring only the necessary stuff, leave your diary and your personal vacuum cleaner home.

2. Dress comfy.  No gowns please, unless you want to get snagged.

3. Never shout "Boring!" because you just might provoke the ride operator.  Which can also be rephrased as "Never underestimate a ride."  or "Be nice to the ride operator."

Us: Boring! Boorrrinng!

[a few seconds later...]

Us: Stop!!  Get us out of here!!

For example, just because the Viking has a simple swinging pendulum-like motion doesn't mean it's peanuts compared to something as convoluted as, say the Star Flyer.  In fact, the Viking can be a pretty terrifying ride too, especially when you sit on the extreme end, and more especially when you just ate.   Which brings us to Number 4.

4. Plan your meals.  Even the most macho men will puke under the most intense rides, so be good to your stomach (and to the people adjacent to you) by planning your meals accordingly.

Ideally, eat and drink after you've had a go at all the rides.  If you must drink, sip little amounts from your water bottle.

Vendor:  [casually]  That'd be ninety bucks for the Coke.
My friend: Can I pawn the bottle afterwards?

5.  Sneak in your water bottle.  Food and drinks aren't allowed inside the Star City premises because they've got to squeeze as much money out of you as possible.  Which is to say the expensive food and drinks sold inside are patterned after the rides.  Both are heart-stopping.

The price of a bottle of Coke and a hotdog on stick, for instance, can already feed a family in Sudan.  At such rates, you'll probably even have second thoughts about giving in to your impulses to throw up after a nasty ride at Surf Dance.

If you're coming in by car, pack food and a big water jug enough to hydrate you and your family or friends, and you can just eat at the parking lot.


6. Bring your camera.  Whether you abide by film cameras or digicams, just bring one with you.  And extra batteries too, and film or memory card.

Star City's resident photographers will aim their huge cameras at you after a particularly trying time at the rides when you're especially soaked aboard your log boat on the Wild River.  In this case you must smile and look relaxed, because you don't know where those pictures might get posted on the Net.  But since those photos, just like the food, probably cost a bomb, you're not really going to claim them afterwards (unless you really want to).  That's why you brought your own camera.

7. Remember your physics lessons. Potential energy and kinetic energy to be exact, and G-force too.  No particular reason.  It just helps to know what's at work when you ride the rides.
 
8. Remember to breathe.  You scream at the top of your lungs especially during the kinetic part of the ride, but then forget to breathe, or else breathe too shallow.  That would really tire you out.  The next thing you know, you've passed out.  Wait, how can you know if you just passed out?

Whatever.  Just remember to breathe deep--because most riders don't--and you'll be okay. 

9. When you're on an ride-all-you-can ticket, by all means ride all you can!  And don't close your eyes in an effort to minimize the scare factor.  That's cheating. 

Remember roller coasters are very safe; they're subjected to precisely-controlled design and rigorous tests, not to mention constant maintenance, so you're in good hands.  In fact, you're more likely to figure in an accident during the trip from your house to Star City and back, than on a roller coaster.

So buckle up and enjoy the ride, and try not to get some on your seatmate.