Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Three Does Not Equal Four

A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving my friends from the now defunct UPS Store came out for a visit. The week was full of excitement.

First was the trip to Universal Studios. I feel like I need to put this trip into a little bit of context. Technically, it wasn't my first time at Universal Studios. The first time I was around 7 or 8 and my family was in Orlando FL. We met up with my Aunt Janet, Uncle Mark, and two cousins to experience the amazing newly opened Universal Studios. We go on the ET ride which was fun and then my mom suggested the Murder She Wrote tour. Being a seven year old I never really watched the show but I do remember that every Sunday when I went in to kiss my mom good night good ole Angela Lansbury was solving some mystery on screen. Anyway, I don't remember much about the ride until the end. Everyone was getting up to leave but the doors wouldn't open. Turns out the computers in the brand new park were still a little glitchy and one of the glitch's was that when the computers froze or shut down the doors would remained closed and locked. Great. A comedian from the audience seized his chance to make his big break and have a captive audience fall in love with him...that is until he realized that there were children in the room and his schtick probably wouldn't be appropriate. We eventually did get out, only to find that the computer glitch had shut down the whole park. Well my Aunt Janet found that unacceptable and found some manager and gave them a piece of her mind. It must have been a pretty upset piece since we were escorted out the back way. We left to the sounds of the Jetsons theme song playing and my Aunt yelling to the song to shut up.

So again, technically this wasn't my first time at Universal. The first thing we do is go to the Fear Factor live show. Well we go to the show but Charlie, Michele's husband decides to be a contestant on the show. We not only get to see Charlie in spandex but we also get to see him eat something disgusting, pull flags out of eel-infested waters, AND get shocked! To top it all off, he won the contest! This time at Universal instead of being escorted out, we got escorted to the front of every line! I got to go on all of the rides I wanted and we got an awesome picture of the us all screaming on a ride. I feel like my journey with Universal Studios has come full circle.

The next night me and Steph went to an Anaheim Ducks game. I have issues. Their chants are ridiculous and they are too nice. Let's start with the chants. Let's Go Ducks has three syllables and yet the crowd tried to fit it into the Let's Go Rangers chant. Three doesn't equal four! Chanting "Let's Go Duh-ucks" does not create an extra syllable it just makes it sound like everyone forgot who they were cheering for in the middle of the chant. Take an example from the Mets or Jets, they know they are a syllable short and thus can't use that chant. Instead they made up their own. How about "Do it Ducks?" or you can still use the Ranger chant but instead speed it up. Instead of "Let's Go Rangers" in the same amount of time say "Let's Go Ducks Let's Go Ducks." This is the method I prefer and the chant I used at the game.

Onto the niceness. The Ducks were playing the Sharks and there were some Shark fans by us who were being pretty obnoxious. At one point one of them fell into the seat in front of him. Instead of the Ducks fans getting mad and chanting "Throw him Out" they helped him up and a little while later took his picture for him. Are you kidding me?! To make matters worse, the refs made a bad call. Instead of the typical "A**hole" chant that I know I love I was stuck with "You suck Ref." Lame.
I know what you're thinking, this niceness is that thing called good sportsmanship but like the man in the parking lot said after the Ducks win, "This is hockey not figure skating."

Steph and Michele came and went and then I went on to spend Thanksgiving with my friends Rachel and Keri, who I lived with for a year when I moved back to MA after New Zealand. Thanksgiving was great and relaxing, a perfect break before the final leg of the semester. I have one more week and then I am done with my first semester. Lots of things need to get done by the time I leave for home: finals, projects, holiday parties, Disneyland, Yosemite, American Gladiator live taping....