1. WEDway People Mover – Epcotexplorer’s got a great write up on the history of the PeopleMover.
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Conceived in 1974 as a public transit solution the system uses no tires, instead employing magnets to pull cars along a track. The PeopleMover now only resides in three places: Disneyland, The Magic Kingdom, and Houston International Airport. From epcotexplorer:
“This system, although not widely used as original hoped, was only one of 10 people-moving systems evaluated by the Urban Mass Transportation Administration to achieve total operating and maintenance cost of only nine cents per passenger mile.”
While it’s unfortunate that this concept didn’t spread out to public use, the PeopleMover serves as a reminder of how real-world-solution-oriented the EPCOT endeavor was at one time. Compare that to modern times, where the Living Seas pavilion has been repurposed into a Finding Nemo ride.
Sigh.
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2. Saved By The Bell Conspiracy Theory – Saved By The Bell is probably the TV show I am most familiar with, backwards and frontwards.
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No shame! I can tell you which episode is playing by the banners hanging in the hallway in the opening scene, I can recite the majority of episodes line-by-line, and I can go on at length about the world outside of Bayside, Jessie’s family history, the bouncer situation at The Attic, and the evolution of the Zack Attack. I came across this article on Cracked this week featuring one man’s theory that SBTB is all a dream, namely Zack Morris’ dream, and claiming that the reality is the proto-SBTB program featuring many of the same characters, Good Morning Miss Bliss.
I’ve got to say, it’s somewhat convincing.
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3. Lazer Tag Academy – We had a barbecue this weekend, and at one point the conversation turned to 80s Saturday Morning cartoons. This is not an unusual direction for things to head at our parties. My pal Robert mentioned Lazer Tag Academy, and I had absolutely NO recollection of it! I was amazed that this existed, given that I was a huge Lazer Tag fan back in the day. I looked the show up this morning and lo and behold, it was a thing!
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Not surprisingly, DiC made a show for air the same Saturday Morning season featuring the Lazer Tag competitor, Photon.
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While Lazer Tag was the superior toy, I kind of have to go with Photon as the better-looking show.
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4. The Stand – I was reminded of the first edition cover of Stephen King’s The Stand this week. It’s amazing!
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5. Wes Anderson Characters – We Saw Moonrise Kingdom this week, and I thought it was great. Better than Darjeeling, not as good as Life Aquatic. Marinaesque has made a drawing featuring most main characters from Anderson’s movies. I love it. I love it. She’s also got other great posters inspired by Wes Anderson and a host of other things. Check her site out!
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It seems everyone’s got their own hierarchy of Wes Anderson movies. Here’s mine, favorite to least-favorite:
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1. Royal Tenenbaums
2. Rushmore
3. Life Aquatic
4. Fantastic Mr. Fox
5. Moonrise Kingdom
6. Darjeeling Limited
7. Bottle Rocket
What’s yours?
-ds