Luck of the Devil

When we were on the family reunion the powers that be decided that all the kids would make a movie. Heather wrote a script for it, which had such a lame premise that every boy in the cast quit. Heather quit right after that and told us to make our own movie. So it was down to Kaitlin, Anna, Grace, and Kathryn. They wrote a script for a murder mystery. It wasn't a murder mystery like Murder She Wrote or Hercule Poirot or anything. It was more like Nancy Drew or some little kid mystery book or something. The plot was really convoluted and stuff. Anyways, I played the dangerous psychopathic person who errantly believed he had murdered his sister because his aunt told him so.

By the way, parents, I know that if any of these girls actually discovered a dangerous psychopath had murdered his own sister, they wouldn't confront him about it. They would know to contact a reasonable adult.

Anyway, all the filming was done in the three hours before it was supposed to be shown to the parents. It was really rushed. In fact, they got home while we were still editing it. We needed to save it to a CD, which took 30 minutes but we needed to show the parents the movie. What did we do to keep them from taking their children home to bed since it was after 10:00?

Well, here's where the luck of the devil factors in. Grandad and Grandma had this brilliant idea to create a three-hour slideshow presentation chronicling Grandma's entire life through pictures. Some of those pictures could qualify as antiques. So while the entire family sat through a presentation that I had already seen twice, I was downstairs poking Andrew and trying to make him make the computer save faster. (Not really. That was a joke. I was just down there glaring at the computer screen as it saved sloooooooooooooooooowly.)

In the end it all worked out. I'm still waiting to see if I live happily ever after, though.

Birthday Month

When we were in Disneyworld it was my cousin's birthday on Sunday. We went to magic kingdom and had a really good time. For the rest of the vacation, Kathryn was "the birthday girl." Andrew said to me multiple times during this trip, "Stop wishing Kathryn a happy birthday. Her birthday was Sunday!" Just goes to show what he knows.

Yes, it is still her birthday. Tonight we are going out to dinner, a movie (Up, which you guys have already seen), and then ice cream. The celebration will not end! It's great! Grandma thinks it is just because Aunt Jennifer wanted to take her kids to see Up. I don't blame her.

Disney should adopt my Ranking System

I've been reading a Disney guide book on this trip. In this book they list every ride and assign it a number of stars. Unfortunately, these stars don't really mean anything to me because they aren't qualified so I'm going to make my own ranking system and list it here. Just for fun.

1-star (*): Little kid rides. Think Dumbo and all its unfortunate progeny. When little kids start crying, mothers put their children on these rides to put them to sleep.
Who will enjoy: Meredith, Emily.
2-star (**): Scares Meredith but excites Bryce, and therefore by extension Luke. Think little kid roller coasters and race tracks. When little kids say to their parents: "Put me on something really scary" and the parents don't have enough cruel sense of humor/irresponsibility to put them on something like TOWER OF TERROR!!! then they put their kids on this ride. For uppity young children.
Who will enjoy: Emily, Bryce, Luke, Grace (Connor would probably be bored.)
3-star (***): The rides that no one goes on. When you ask Aunt Jennifer if she went on them, she rolls her eyes.
Who will enjoy: Alexie
4-star (****): Rides that everyone will enjoy. The little squirts may or may not go on these rides, depending on how scary they are. Everything from PhilharMagic (Fun for the whole family) to Thunder Mountain Railroad (Fun for any of the family who don't mind broken ribs) that is fun and good falls into this category.
Who will enjoy: Everyone or most everyone, depending on how scary it is.
5-star (*****): The big attraction. These things attract lightning bolts like nothing else because they are the tallest things in the park and you can see them from anywhere in Florida. They garner the longest lines in the park that are slowed down by little kids crying their eyeballs out at the thought of riding and girlfriends who are only riding it because their boyfriends are. That's how scary and awe-inspiring these rides are.
Who will enjoy: Duncan, Kathryn


Well, that's it. I'm going to go alter all my past blog posts on disneyland to include my ranking system. I'll also put in the label "vacation" just in case any of you want to find these posts quickly. Just click on the label below.

Dad's New Friend Carl

Yesterday, Dad had the most unusual encounter with one of the workers at Disney. We were riding Expedition Everest (*****) over and over. The person contolling traffic was named "Carl." Carl looked to be over 50 years old. Carl was talking to a lady who was apparantly asking Carl for directions. Dad, being his usual doofy self, stepped in between them and flashed his tickets at Carl. Carl, taken aback, sputtered "You are so rude!" Dad glared at him and asked "Let me see your name." So Carl turned his back on Dad to protect his "Hi! I'm Carl and I LOVE YOU!" button from Dad's evil penetrating gaze. Dad grabbed Carl's shoulder to turn him around and then Carl screamed "DON'T TOUCH ME OR I'LL CALL SECURITY!!!"

Kathryn and I quickly dragged Dad into the line and rode Everest. Dad, for some reason, has not dropped this and has done annoying official things like "registering complaints" at guest services. In my opinion, he should just turn the other cheek and let this thing slide. I think this won't become a big deal and Carl will probably not be fired since he looks like he's been there since 1963 when Disneyworld first opened. Oh well.

Maniacal Crew

All week I've been part of the "Adventurous Crew," including me, Dad, David, and our cousin Kathryn. Kathryn is a true-blue danger and death nut. When we were preparing to come I was rather depressed because I was the only McPherson who expressed any interest in riding any ride moving faster than "It's a Small World." Then along came Kathryn.

Yesterday we went to DisneyQuest which is like an enormous arcade. The best ride, which just so happens to be the ride we rode a million times because it was awesome, was CyberSpace Mountain. (*****) What happened was that you designed a roller coaster and then rode in a flight simulator that rode you through it. It was awesome. Also I did it incrementally. You see, the first time I rode I was with Andrew. On the "Scream-o-meter" our coaster got three out of five screams. Booooring. When we gave the card with our coaster on it to the disney intern, she asked "You go upside-down three times. Is that all right?"
"N-", Andrew started.
"Yes!" I said. So we rode it and if Andrew wasn't a complete lame-o, he would have been able to stop clutching onto the handlebar long enough to press the emergency stop button. (According to him, he couldn't reach it.)

The second time (and third and fourth and fifth) I rode with Kathryn. Our first coaster got four screams out of five and if we weren't both digitally impaired and in a hurry to get on our coaster and die, we would have figured out how to change some of our boring coaster parts to EXTREME DANGER coaster parts. We just rode it and had fun. It went upside down five times. Our third time we put in nothing but EXTREME DANGER, NECK PAIN, AND STOMACH SWIRLING coaster parts. "YAY!" was our general reaction. We went upside down seven times. Our next time we went upside nine times. That was our max, unfortunately.

Today was Animal Kingdom and we rode the only roller coaster in the park, Mt. Everest (*****), at least a bazillion times. It was AWESOME!! I also convinced her to ride the Dinosaur (*****) ride, which turned me into a lifeless puddle of primordial goo the last time I rode it. It's great to have someone to be maniacal with you.