Sharkboy

GeorgeHamilton is a very vocal cat, he really lets us know when his bowl is almost empty, he also lets us know when he needs to use his powder room…
And now, more kitties with things to say:

Saw it at The Princess of Whales Theatre last night. Don’t get me wrong the show itself was excellent, the Phantom sang with all the emotions needed to convey his pain and sorrow. The sets were top notch, the acting / singing / dancing from the cast was absolutely perfect…

Once again though, it was the audience (#15) that ruined the evening.

The problems started early, when the lady (and I use the term loosely) sitting next to me decided that her oversize bag should go between her legs, therefore stretching the delimitation of her seat, and totally infringing on my own space. We had a knee fight going on at some point, I won… Then there was the cell phone buzzing… then there was the infernal candy wrapper… then the friend of candy wrapper asking for a candy too… then there was the ugly with stringy greasy bleached hair one who in the middle of Notes, a funny moment in the show, decided to stand up and leave, but for some reason she couldn’t leave from the back of the theatre, she would not have distracted enough patrons, she walked to the front and tried to exit there, until an usher thought better or it and showed her the correct exit (at the back of the theatre, yeah, that’s right)… then there was the out of town fatty behind us who broke her seat, not sure how, but it was in pieces… then there was her also out of town friend strumming her fingers on a candy box, and NOT to the beat I might had… then there was the low whispering, going into full on whispering, going into high whispering to simply talking… Thank god no one started to sing their own rendition of their favourite song, I would have lost it, like I did when I saw Grease last time it was in town…

Didn’t any of these people look at their tickets to see the $80 price tag on it??? Last time I paid $80 for the priviledge of sitting tightly with 500 people, I kNOW I shut up and watch the spectacle on stage!!!

Mind you, there were a couple of moments when DR and I turned to each other and giggled… maybe that bothered some theatre goers around us, but I’m sure it didn’t since we know how to giggle in style:

• The chandelier fell so slowly that I swear I saw Christine and Raoul breaking out the teapot and serving each drinks and crumpets before sashaying off the center stage
• At the cemetery when the Phantom throws fireballs at Raoul, it was so patheticly low energy that DR dubbed it the F–Lame thrower scene, with this sounds effect: p-to!, p-too!
• Meg, Christine’s best friend and Madame Giry’s daughter, kept pas-de-chatted herself around the stage, nosing around, arabesquing in more scenes than I believe she was needed in, she reminded me of GeorgeHamilton following us all around the apartment to make sure he’s not missing out on anything

I give the show a solid 9 out of 10, I give the audience 10 “Shut the hell up” out of 10 “Get out of my face“.

In the morning when I go to work now, I walk through Allan Garden Park and make my way to King and Jarvis where I stop at the Starbucks or Second Cup to have my morning coffee and read a bit before starting my day at the office. At 08:50, I leave which ever café I’m in and walk the next 3 blocks to be at work on time.

So here I am, on King Street, heading West. I cross Jarvis, I cross Church, I cross Victoria… and I see the entrance to the subway, it’s just a few steps from Yonge now… and bang… can’t breathe… It’s like a nasty smelly dragon has come out of the subway. From that point on, most people surging out of the subway cannot wait to light up, that’s all that’s on their mind, they’ve had that unlit cigarette on their lips for the last little while, puffing on dry tobacco… and then bliss, they light up all at once… and I choke all at once.

I pretty much feel like this dweeb:

In the next 54 steps to my office building’s front door, I bump into smokers… smoking as if their day depends on it… and that’s all they can do, they cannot continue to walk, they just mostly stand there and smoke… they wait at the corner for their light to turn and smoke… they wait in front of their office doors and smoke… they block the way and smoke…. In the next 54 steps to my office building’s front door, I counted 37 smoking emergencies… that’s a smoker for every 1.46 step I take… that’s a smoker for pretty much every breath I take until I can escape inside my building…. Even the dog looking doorman is a welcome sight… and smell.

There is no way you can go outside for fresh air downtown Toronto (#27) when you go for a walk, you now go for a smoke break whether you like it or not. My city’ sidewalks have become their ashtray.

8 great nights, 8 great days!
Nothing at Disney can spoil your fun… we’ll almost nothing… I manage to find #12 on my most hated list, but it happened on the very last night…

The weather was great, the flight was great, the car rental place was great, the drive to the park was great, the girl at the front desk was great, the concierge was great, the hotel was great, the room was great, the landscaping was great, the love-bugs, not so great… We arrived in Orlando at the tail end of the love-bugs season… Love-bugs are a little bigger than flies the male attaches himself to the female and then start to fly around, annoying all the tourists… their only ennemy seemed to be air-conditioned bedrooms… thank god for that!

In 8 days and 8 nights, we did everything there is to do at Disney World… two grown kids left to explore a playground. DR is actually having a day-by-day recounts with lots of pictures and videos, go see them! I have been to Disney World and Disneyland many times before, and will return again and again, but I must admit that this one trip was the most special of all. I had the biggest heart fuzz moments watching DR going through all the different corners of the World.

I pride myself in preparing a lot before any trips, and this time was no exception, but once there, it was like I threw it all out the window… we somewhat followed a plan, but most of it was left to what happened after turning different corners… Instead of staying at one of the 7 Disney Parks for the day, we had breakfast in one, lunch in another, dinner at yet another. We drove to the city whenever we felt like it, we skipped dinner to come back home with Burger King in the early morning hours and eat in bed… At one point I had a bag of Chip’n Dale pretzel, a bag of M&M, a Goofy Sour Balls candy bag and a large coke going at once, and I didn’t care…

We went to Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s MGM Studios, Disney’s Animal Kindgom, Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach, Downtown Disney and Pleasure Island, Universal Studios, Universal’s Islands of Adventure, Wet’n Wild for a private party (approx 200 people for a park that can host thousands…)and had drinks many times at Full Moon Saloon. We rode rides, we saw shows, we watched amazing fireworks, we saw movies projected on water fountains, they lit lagoons on fire for us, we rode the front of the Monorail with the conductor 3 TIMES (even got our Monorail Driver’s Licence on ride #2), we ate the largest piece of beef a human can be served, we witness some of the best parents-children meltdowns, parents-parents meltdown, children-floor meltdown, I even had a meltdown in a parking lot trying to find a spot at 2 am with a bag full of Burger King in the back seat tired as hell and hungrier than that, we saw Tinkerbell fly out of Cinderella’s Castle and glide all the way to Tomorrowland, we swam with sharks, we talked with Crush (that one is stunningly fresh and funny, think Kids Say The Darndest Things without the annoying Cosby Dad), I tickled Tigger, WE BOUGHT LIGHT SABRES AT THE STAR WARS WEEKEND EVENT AT DISNEY’S MGM STUDIOS and used them for the rest of the day, and although I can’t speak geek like DR can, I could still identify Tatooine in the landscape, I bought a Jaws t-shirt, we both rode the highest free falling water slide at speeds exceeding 60 miles per hours, ouch my back is on fire, we posed with Jedi Mickey (with our light sabres), we lived through Tropical Storm Barry, got soaked mind you, but still lived through it, we did Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad all in one hour, on Saturday for the official gay day we took over the park and no one had a problem with that, we didn’t get stuck in It’s A Small World like every other time I’ve been before, I cried watching Bridge To Terabithia on the flight to Orlando (oh my god how embarassing), I unexpectedly kissed Brer Fox taking him by surprise, first time I saw a character losing his poise, we played in the waves, I laughed and laughed at DR’s face after selling him on Maelstrom and watching his face when the ride was over (it was payback for my nephew doing the same to me during a prior visit), we fast passed, we park hopped, we ran, we laughed, we loved every moment of it… and we were both on the verge of tears when it was over… to the point that I couldn’t tell DR how fantastic a time I had had to risk losing it at the airport!

And we were attacked by love-bugs.

On our very last night, after the most amazing night parade and fireworks display, and after testing Country Bear Jamboree and one last ride on Splash Mountain, we were exhausted, we were beat, we were happy… and then it happened… Not sure why the magic suddenly dissapeared, the music died, the lights went out but all I could hear was this woman behind me, walking and shuffling her freakin’ Crocs footed feet (#12) on the cobblestones of Main Street… My Disney pill was wearing off!

Why does everyone in Orlando wear Crocs?