Friday night marked our first visit to Lakeland Florida.  Lakeland is like one of Orlando’s little cousins.  It’s not as strong, it’s not as cool, and it’s more redneck.  And tha’ts not saying much when Orlando is the frame of reference.  Seriously though, we had a good time. 

Lillians in Lakeland is affiliated with Lillians in Gainesville actually.  Fortunately for us, Lakeland’s version wasn’t full of old local singles listening to old local cover bands.  The stage was pretty unique and the sound guy was actually pretty good.  He had these multi colored stage lights that he was controlling in sync to our music.  He actually was paying attention to the music and feeling the upcoming changes to alter the lights.

Overall, it was a good time and a new town to return to.

Next, we went to meet our folks in Walt Disney World for Travis’ birthday. 

Evidently, the WDW has been undergoing some changes.  First off, i noticed a bit more attitude in the workers than the traditional lithium induced faux friendliness they usually have.  Secondly, there were several theme park bathrooms that were under about 3 inches of water and had the toilets all blocked up.

Regardless, we were bound for the usual delights of EPCOT center, right?  Wrong.  EPCOT is not the COT it used to be.  Here’s how:

1. Space Ship Earth: Is actually exactly the same as the day EPCOT opened it’s turnstiles.  God bless em for keeping this antiquated account of the history of communications.  I like how they haven’t even updated it to include cell phones or the internet.  It still boasts about how we will all talk via video phone in the future.

2. The Living Seas:  No longer in existance.  Enter “Nemo and The Sea.”  Even though the old ride was kinda crap, at least it promintently featured the massive aquarium and water life.  Now, the “ride” is a conveyor belt seat style ride through some bullshit recreation of Finding Nemo.  There wasn’t even a story line to the ride!  They just showed clips of the characters from Finding Nemo superimposed over the real aquarium in the background. 

3. The Land: Still the Land, but add “SOARIN,” probably EPCOT’s best ride.  It was a virtual reality hand glide trip that took place in front of an IMAX screen.  You sat in these huge chairs that were lifted up 40 feet into the air right up against the screen and it simulated flying over California.  It was actually pretty cool and a suitable improvement.  And yes, they still have the little boat ride that floats through the hydroponics lab.

4. The Journey into Imagination:  More like the feeble attempt at a journey into Imagination.  This ride used to be perfect.  There was nothing wrong with it.  At all.  Then, a few years back, they did a massive overhaul and brought in Eric Idle to bullshit you for about 5 minutes.  Terrible, boring, unimaginative.

4.b.  Honey I Shrunk the Audience:  They need to change the name of this ride/show to “Honey I Shrunk the amount of people who remember this movie.”  Just bring back Captain EO already.  Comeon, MJ was acquitted of all charges.

5. The World of Motion: long gone.  It’s been Test Track for years.  Experience the thrill of zooming along in a real automobile at 60 miles per hour?  No thanks, I do that in my neighborhood every day.  I miss the old World of Motion with it’s extremely boring account of travel.  More importantly, I miss all those late 80’s prototype cars you could see when you left the ride.

6. Horizons: Dead for years as well.  It’s now called Mission Death, I mean Space.  Did you know that 2 people have already died on this ride?  Way to go Disney.  I miss the cheezy 80’s vision of what the future will be like.  Flying cars?? In a traffic jam??? OUTRAGEOUS!

7. Universe of Energy: thank god it’s gone and replaced with Ellen DeGeneres’ Universe of Energy.   I think?

World Showcase: Still fun as shit.  This gets better as you get older because you can buy all sorts of crap in the different countries, drink different wines and beers and sample Disney’s re-creations of the countries’ native foods.

I think it’s funny how EPCOT has changed nearly every single thing it had when it first opened.  In one way, it was terribly boring, hardly educational, and just a lot of walking.  On the other hand, though, I miss the crappy animatronic people telling me what the year 2000 is going to be like from 1984’s perspective.

Currently listening : Wincing the Night Away By The Shins Release date: By 23 January, 2007