re you tired of city-living? Why not chuck it all and move to
The Shire of Bend, Oregon? In this community they’re building Middle Earth-style cottages instead of the cookie-cutter houses seen in most new developments. Where most suburban landscapes have sewer systems and ditches, here Hobbit holes abound! The whole place looks like Disney — the real Walt, not the insulting mall Disney of today — decided to build a Tolkien village. The web site is pretty incredible; if the real thing is anything like the php version, I think they’ll sell a gaggle of homes.
I like The Swordsmen Cottage (pictured here) the best. There’s even a little Old English “town square” and an outdoor amphitheater that “has been created to facilitate events of merriment, gaiety, and pleasure for all the inhabitants of The Shire.” How cool is that?
Posts tagged as:
Disney
Live Like a Hobbit
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There’s A Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow
There’s A Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow - Disney
Gosh I love Disney. I love the dreamy, tomorrow-is-going-to-be-beautiful ka of E.P.C.O.T. so much …
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Bare Necessities
Bare Necessities - Gilkyson
… if you look under the rocks and plants and take a glance at the fancy ants and maybe try a few …
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A.I.
Rebecca’s Pocket has an excellent and terse review of A.I.:
“[*1/2--- ] Disney does Blade Runner. Skip it.”
There’s a longer, very well-written review, albeit with major spoilers, at unHip.
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fake facts
I’m a big fan of urban legends. Well. Okay. I’m a big fan of debunking urban legends. (Stop the bunking!) I don’t do much actual debunkment myself, rather I tend to inform people when what they are telling me is an urban legend or where they can go to learn if I am really risking my life by flashing my headlights at the moron driving at midnight without his lights because it’s a known fact! that gangs in LA drive around town with their lights off just waiting for someone to flash them so they can kill them as part of a gang initiation … So I got quite a giggle and smirk attack while reading things that might be true (but aren’t).
[click to continue...]
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Disney Myths
More Debunking Fun!
Claim: The closure and removal of Disneyland’s Skyway in November of 1994 was prompted by a guest’s having fallen from the ride several months earlier.
Status: False.
Claim: Several guests have lost their lives on various Disneyland attractions.
Status: True.
Claim: One of the castle spires on the cover of Disney’s The Little Mermaid home video was deliberately drawn as a phallus by a disgruntled artist.
Status: False.
Has anyone ever died while riding Space Mountain?
You’ve probably heard the rumor that a passenger was decapitated while riding Space Mountain Anaheim. This is Urban Legend; people have died while riding the attraction before, but their deaths have been caused by such things as heart attacks (it is fairly well accepted that one such death in Paris was due to a heart attack). One version of this story has that a test dummy in the Orlando Space Mountain was the thing which lost a head.
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Meet George Jetson
I have always had a strange attraction to the mod style of the Jetsons, Disney’s Tomorrowland, and things like that. I don’t know why. I just think it’s hip, y’know? Retro-cool. (Have you visited squaresville.com yet? It’s one of my favorite things links in the sidebar.) I’ve always been in love with the early Disney style. I think it has something to do with hoping and dreaming … like E.P.C.O.T.! What a great idea! The experimental prototype community of tomorrow! (It’s sort of similar to my recent blah-on-napster posts: Are you still using that? Dude. That’s just so 2000. (It probably also explains why I had to buy a visor as soon as they were released.)
P.J. O’Rourke says,
“It’s better to spend money like there’s no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there’s no money.”
Even better than E.P.C.O.T. was the little city you could see inside Space Mountain while you were riding the WEDWay People Mover (which is now called the TomorrowLand Transit Authority). Remember that? You were hot and tired and sweaty but still excited to be in Disney and you couldn’t wait to get on another ride or maybe see Goofy somewhere but you got a chance to relax and ride on the linear-induction-magnet-powered little trams all through TomorrowLand. You got to go through Space Mountain! And right before you came through the other side (so you were cruising above the gift shop, Mickey’s Space Pad or something) the music started … “It’s a great big, beautiful tomorrow …” and you got to see this whole huge little city with lights and a spaceport and hovercraft and robots and man it was just. freakin’. awesome. (Where is my jetpack?!)
Stop.
Thanks to Jason for reminding me that it was the WEDWay People Mover.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, my name is David and this has been another entry in the world famous davidgagne.net. And if you had a lousy time … well, my name is Bryan and this has been another entry in the world famous bryanjbusch.com.
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Deaths at DisneyLand
Great Caeser’s Ghost! I had no idea that so many people have actually been killed at DisneyLand! I’ve been in California for about three months now and haven’t made it to DisneyLand yet. I’ve heard nothing but bad things about it, although I want to visit if only to compare it to Disney World. I grew up in north central Florida and have been to Disney World at least fifty times (seriously) and I have always had a terrific time. It is just about my favorite place on the planet. (I wonder if there is another page somewhere with death statistics about Disney World …)
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