Subastar, Queen of the Indians

Well, she should be, at least.

Subastar was recently bored. She was looking around for things to fill her time and found a somewhat specific outlet:

The Maaza Miss India New York 2009 Pageant.

I like to think I had something to do with this. Maybe not in organizing the event (though it would have gone off a lot smoother if I had), but maybe just maybe I have had an impact on the people around me with the "Why the Hell not?" attitude that provides so much nonsensical fodder for this very blog.

Of course I could just be trying to take undue credit, as my latest personal accomplishment/adventure involved overcoming a challenging block of cheese.


You may laugh, but we've all been there.

So Subastar found out about this contest about three weeks before it was held, and immediately had to start preparing for the event. This event consisted of:

-Evening Wear:





-Traditional Indian Wear:

And

-the Talent Competition:

I feel that I should take this opportunity to point out that my knowledge of world cultures is based exclusively on the Street Fighter franchise of video games.

Though in retrospect, it doesn't seem right to me that the Brazilian character is the one with the most body hair...


I apologize to anyone with childhood memories of this game who now have to picture Blanka electrocuting his waxer at the spa.

But from a variety of sources and people helping out, Subastar was able to get all her things together and be ready by the start of the pageant on Saturday evening. That is something I can certainly not say for the organizers of the event.

As proof of their sh*t-not-togetherness, I direct you to the first link of this blog post, which lists last Saturday's pageant as an "Upcoming Event" with "Date and venue to be announced shortly. Accepting registrations now!"

Going back in time from the present, but to the future according to their website, the event was held in Flushing, Queens at an Indian Community Center.


It was a pretty nicely sized auditorium.

Did I mention that the planning sucked?

We were told that the pageant would start at 6:00 PM. I was put in charge of distributing the pre-purchased tickets to Subastar's other fans, so I got there at 5:15 PM.


Pictured: Some of Subastar's other fans.

At the exchange of tickets for a painted clay pot (don't ask), I was informed that now the pageant would be starting at 7:00 PM.

Super.

In my confusion about the time difference, however, I checked the printed tickets.

Sure enough, they said that the event was to start at 7:00 PM.
HOWEVER... it also said that November 14th was a Sunday. I suspected Super-villainy.


The reason you've never heard of Calendar man is that he moved out of Gotham City. Presumably to Flushing.

So at long last the pageant got underway shortly after 7:30 PM. Yes, that's right.

In that extra hour and a half they had, you'd think they'd take 30 seconds to learn how to operate the damn curtain. Nope. They had an opening dance than ended with a hugely awkward freeze which lasted well after the applause had ended. Here's some pictures:


The contestants, rockin' out.


There she is.


A little bit of sass for the judges.

That's the sari that she wore for the Traditional Indian Wear portion of the competition. It was designed by her mother and shipped over a few days before the pageant, and it is gorgeous.
Mrs. Subastar knows her stuff.

Next up was the Evening Gown segment. Shazam:


There's another story about the alteration of this dress that we won't get into.


This is probably the best picture I have of this dress... the other ones are a little blurry because I was shouting and cheering while trying to operate the camera.

Here's the back of it, though:


"F this, gals... I'm outta here!"

After the Evening Wear came the Talent Portion. Eventually.

There were several long awkward pauses, a few special performances by local dance schools, and the worst banter I've ever heard from the two worst emcees in history.

One was the winner of the 2007 pageant, and the other was the runner-up to her in that pageant. Their stage time consisted of inconsequential one-upmanship and thinly veiled malice. Don't let their bickering fool you, neither was any better than the other, and the only loser was the audience.

There is probably less bitterness between Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkleman.


"Hey guys, remember me? No? Damn you SEEEEEACREEEEEST!!!"

But yeah! Talent competition!

There were 23 total contestants, counting the Miss Teen India NY competition. Nearly all of them danced.

It got to the point where everyone wished someone would sing a song instead. And then someone did sing a song and everyone wished to go back to dancing.

Our own Subastar did a dance to the song Ooi Maa Ooi Maa, which is the title and not a result of my keyboard sticking.


Spinning! Not pictured: clay pot.

The judges ate it up, because unlike most of the other contestants, Subastar has heard of something called 'facial expression.'

A huge amount of time later, it came down to announce the Final Five contestants:

The first name called:

SUBASTAR!


Booyah.

Next was the Q&A.

Subastar rocked it. After the first two girls gave awful answers to their questions, she hung in there and knocked one out of the park.

The first girl was asked: "what is the most significant challenge facing India today?"

Her answer: The Recession.

I have thought of others:





and so on...

Subastar's : "What has been the biggest disappointment of your life so far?"

Her (paraphrased) answer: I have not had any disappointments in my life. Every experience you have helps you grow as a person and become who you are. If you live in the past among disappointments and regrets, you'll never move forward."

BOOM!

And then the final selection came.

Despite abusing the Q&A section like Ike Turner, Subastar was ultimately selected as the second runner up.


Pictured here, with two other girls who obviously cheated.

She got flowers and her sash and totally kicks ass and we're all very proud of her!


Pictured here with the girl who cheated less.


"Hi, Mom? Your sari kicks ass! All the girls' eyes started bleeding out of jealousy! Yeah, awesome, I know!"


So congratulations, Subastar. You did a fantastic job.


Catch you later, everyone else.


Rev

Halloween 2009!

Hello everybody.

Before we get to the main topic of this post, I'd like to take some time to endorse a product/service.

neatorama.com is having a Mystery Sale.



I'd like to express my thanks to neatorama.com for helping me to retain my sanity while at the same time robbing my employers of thousands of hours of productivity.

Anyway, the setup is simple. You pay them $9.95 and they send you something. You won't know what it is, but it will be worth at least $9.95 and will show up in a couple of weeks.

It's great fun. It's like opening a box you woke up next to following a tequila blackout. Actually, it's even better than that, because the neatorama box most likely won't be full of your own sick and a family of angry raccoons.


Worst birthday ever.

I did the mystery sale last time they offered it and got this:


A Beethoven Duck!

It now belongs to my niece, waiting patiently until she's old enough to be terrified of it.

Speaking of terrified...


Once more at October's end we get dressed up like silly people and parade around.

Oach and I had our costume picked out almost immediately after our Calvin & Hobbes triumph last year.



And here it is:


Statler and Waldorf.



Subastar went with us to the parade also. She decided to be ambitious this year, and we constructed for her a Little Mermaid Costume:





I also indoctrinated Subastar in the grand tradition of Jack O'Lantern carving.


I find the "primal scream" technique works best when opening the pumpkin.


Yeah, really get in there...


Knives!


All finished! Mine is the evil one! Quick, turn the lights off!


That's the stuff.

Ok, enough of all that, let's get back to our sweet costumes:


If it looks like we're wet, it's because it was raining on us.

Subastar's costume I built using a plastic wastebasket, pitcher, duct tape, wire, muslin and that turquoise cloth we found in the clearance section of a fabric store on 40th street.


Not this one, but near it. And they all look the same.

The tail came out pretty much exactly how I pictured it, which goes to show how thrown together and amateurish my imagination is.

The wire did make the tail bob up and down when she walked, which helped the whole "swimming" thing.



And check out who we ran into:


Ahh! It's Ursula the Sea Witch!

And before any of you ask, yes, that is a woman.

I gotta say, though, Subastar's costume practically made itself compared to our Statler and Waldorf project.

Oach and I brainstormed how we were going to actually make that thing, and then he did pretty much everything else while I provided moral support.

The assembly got a bit crazy. To satisfy some of your curiosity, the front part of the balcony is made of Oak Tag that Oach painted with the balcony decorations:


Note the mermaid tail shrapnel in the background.

The chair backs were quarter inch luon, similarly painted. The Oak tag bent around and was glued in place on the outer edges of the chair backs.

The chair backs, additionally, had hinges on them so that Oach and I were pinned together when we started walking in the parade. It took a little getting used to. Holding hands helped. Not with balance or anything. It just... helped.

Anyway... The weight of this whole contraption was supported on our shoulders, as the chair backs were physically bolted to the suit coats we were wearing.

After the parade, we folded the thing for easy transport.


Relatively easy, anyway.

Going there was another story. To keep the balcony as pristine as possible, we wore it the whole way from Astoria to the Village.


The train was very crowded, but we had good seats.

The bald caps. Oh God, the bald caps. I hate them. They almost ruined Halloween.

Those things sucked. Due to poor planning and underestimation of how complicated they are, that final piece of the outfit made us nearly two hours late leaving for the parade.

You might point out that it was our own fault for not knowing what we were doing.

I respond to that by pointing out the fact that before I got my suit on, my hair and mustache made me look like Mega Man's nemesis, Dr. Wily.


I rest my case.

But finally we were able to get away and march in the parade after all.

People very much enjoyed the costume. Some didn't know who we were, but they were largely the same people who didn't get Calvin & Hobbes either.

Oach didn't get called Tigger at all this year, so we're moving up in the world.

My favorite quote from the night came right after we exited the parade route.

We were just about to remove the balcony when a woman came up to us


Her : Hey, you're those dudes from the Muppet show that talk shit!

Me: That's right.

Her: That's awesome.

(and scene)


Awesome indeed.

I hope everyone had as much fun as we did this Halloween, and maybe even more, because we got rained on and swore a whole lot before we actually got the party cranking.

Feel free to post links to pics of your costumes, I'm sure you guys did a swell job.

Take it easy folks,

Rev

Indian Summer

See what I did there? It's a reference to both unseasonably warm weather and... yeah, you get it.


Happy Diwali, everybody!


Diwali is the Hindu Festival of Lights, so that means several things.

First, I went to New Jersey again.



Secondly, pyrotechnics!



Yes, if there's a way to get me to voluntarily return to New Jersey, it's promising me that I'll get the chance to blow part of it up.


Lord knows not enough of it, though...

Subastar and I decided to not drive ourselves, but instead to take New Jersey Transit. That means we did not get lost, but simply menaced and harrassed by the bums that infest the Port Authority Bus Terminal.


But they've got a statue of Ralph Kramden, so it's not all bad.

After we got to NJ we were picked up by our host for the evening. We were then informed that we had to make a quick side trip to pick up some plastic spoons and such for later on. Then came a miracle:


HOLY CRAP, JERSEY HAS WEGMANS????!!!!

I take back precisely one iteration of one negative thing I have said about New Jersey.

I was pumped about being in a Wegman's again after several years. And here's the icing on the cake:


They stocked Saranac Soft Drinks.

No, not like in that picture. That's a stop on the Saranac Brewery Tour, which I highly recommend everyone take at least once in their lifetime. In the interests of full disclosure, I have to say that the most awesomest tour guide they had no longer works there, but is instead currently typing this blog.

So naturally, I bought 3 six packs of Saranac Ginger Beer. This made me feel optimistic about both the rest of the evening and the human experience in general.

I really like Ginger Beer.

After a large dinner of very good food (of which I am tragically lacking a photo) we went to a temple to celebrate things the right way.

First, we went inside the temple proper to pay respects to Lord Krishna.


Here's the "line" to get in.

From what I was able to surmise, the correct way to celebrate Diwali is by creating a ridiculous fire hazard characterized by total lack of order and a proliferation of elbowing people in the ribs.

The utter chaos of the situation prompted me to inquire (hopefully) if this was the first time such a celebration was held at this location. It was not.

There was a shuttle bus service provided to transport people to and from the large parking lots, which showed some forethought in the organization. However, no one could be bothered to get a few yards of plastic chain.

I humbly submit the following website: http://stanchiondepot.com/

Yes, Stanchion Depot. Your one stop shop for all your stanchion needs!



Want a stanchion? Well we're the depot for you!


Stanchions!


Yeah, that word looks silly. Once inside the doorway things were not significantly better. I was not allowed to take pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it. Adding insult to injury was the sign informing me not to take pictures:

PHOTO GRAPHY
STRICKLY FORBIDDEN

I wanted to take a picture of that sign so very badly.

And finally we were outside again, ready to celebrate the noisy, burny, explody way.

And we were not alone:






It was pretty crazy. We got in on the action, setting off a fountain. In the following video, please note "The Man" trying to keep us down.



As you can see from the dude trying to get us to stop lighting things on fire, and the huge amount of room we had, that was right at the end of the time allotted for firecrackers.

After satisfying our pyrolust, it was time to look at some Rangoli.

Rangoli is a type of floor painting that uses dyed grains and foodstuffs to create brightly colored images. Google that sh*t if you don't believe me.

We went inside the tent out front that housed several works:


Lord Ganesh.


Om (with cow.)


Peacock.


Swastika (the good kind).

After that, it was time to leave. All in all, it was a good time, but my needs for personal space would like to see some changes for next year. I prefer to do my grinding on the dance floor.

Peace, Love and Wegman's to all.


Rev

Hi everybody!



How are you? Good, I'm glad to hear it.

First things first. Anybody want this?



'Cuz I don't.

I'm thinking of throwing it out. I don't need it anymore and it's metal, so I can't even burn it. I figured I'd offer it to you lovely people before going on craigslist and asking $50 for it.

Think that's unreasonable?



http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/fuo/1422410389.html

I wonder how much they're charging for the fourth leg...

The clothing rack has served me well over the past two years, keeping clothes off the ground and generally looking pretty terrible in my closetless room. I decided to upgrade some furniture recently, and now this guy is homeless. If you or anyone you know is interested, you can leave your email and we'll work out when you can come to pick it up.

What? I'm not shipping that. Tell you what... It's got casters that can be attached. You can give me your address, and I'll take it down to the street and give it a shove in your direction.

Hooray for compromise!


"I'm Henry Clay, and I approve of this shoving."

Ok, now that business is out of the way, I can get to pleasure. Two weekends ago, I did the unthinkable.

It's time for a search engine fight! What's the first result when you search for images of "unthinkable?"

Yahoo!:


Yawn.

Google:

Visually more appealing, certainly.

and Bing:


We have a winner!

And yes, it's because of the boobs. I'm actually quite disappointed in all 3.

The unthinkable thing I did was go deep into Enemy Territory, New Jersey.


Buy this t-shirt somewhere.

I actually went to Edison, NJ and made the near fatal error of driving myself. That place blows. It is a mess of freeways and malls and Hell. Mapquest is also not in my good books for giving me vague directions that got me lost. It's tough to tell if this is Mapquest's fault or if it can all be explained by Hell's limitless ever-shifting terrain, designed to prevent souls from escaping.


I knew I should have taken the demon rocket motorcycle.

Subastar and I braved the barbarous savagery of that state to go to the Garba! You may recall my post from last year's Garba, too.

It was held in the same venue with the same performers. I went with a different crowd of people, though. Here's the ladies:



A couple of the guys:



It was pretty bumpin, like last year:




I gotta tell you, not counting security and police, there were twice as many white guys as there were last year.

Of course, by that I mean I saw one who was not my reflection.



I had quickly won the Indians over to my side by awing them with my ability to eat green chili peppers at dinner before we got to the Garba. I further cemented my new rep with some mad dance skillz.


An unfortunate facial expression, surely. But I was groovin'.

I quickly followed that up with some moves that appear in every Bollywood movie ever made.


All of them.

By this time I was exhausted, and had to refresh myself with an ice cold Pepsi.



Pepsi: Refresh Everything.

I have not been paid by Pepsi to say these things. I would accept payment, however. In the form of cash, or simply in sweet, delicious Pepsi Cola.

Back to the dancing:

Subastar is an old pro, quite literally. Again, she grew up in Bombay with it's giant Garbas full of bright colors, twirling dancers, and horrible, horrible paan.


NEVER EAT THIS.

So she was in her element, getting dressed up with as many pins as possible (as is the fashion in Bombay) and twirling away at an alarming rate:



On the way in, I also saw a potential employment opportunity.


It says right on my resume that my range includes 'American girl of Pakistani/Persian origin.'

But seriously, if any Bollywood bigshots are reading this blog, I want to be a Bollywood villain. I'm perfect for the dickish American who is trying to buy the land, or foreclose the mortgage, or lure the protagonist away from his/her home with a lucrative job offer in America, or any of the other evil stuff we do in those films.

And hey, I got the dancing down:




Peace out, folks.

Rev



PS - Happy Diwali!

Invisible Dog Walking

Hey Guys,

See if you can spot Subastar and me in this video from Improv Everywhere!





Fun!

Rev

Hello. How was your Labor Day? Good? I hope so. I spent mine at the New York Aquarium, and that's what I want to talk about right now.

Because I'm a member of the Wildlife Conservation Society, I get free access to the New York Aquarium, which is awesome. So why haven't I blogged about this before? It may have something to do with the fact that the Aquarium is located at Coney Island. To get there I take the N train from one end of the track to the other.

The route looks like this:


"Holding the doors open delays this train, as well as all the trains in the hemisphere."

The moral of the story is I don't go to Coney Island a lot. So I had to make this trip count. Subastar was there too, as seen in this picture with Wilford Brimley:


DIABEETUS.

So after several decades of hardship and toil, the train arrived and we approached our objective:



I was a little nervous about entering because, as everyone knows, every resident of the Ocean has no greater aspiration than to kill the surface world.



Yes, even the ones with wings on their ankles. ESPECIALLY them.

Gathering my courage, I went in and immediately came face to face with the enemy.


All he does is swim and dream of murder.

Ok, maybe that one isn't so bad. But how about this guy?


Yeah, that's right.


"Hi!"

And feeding time was something else, too.



Vicious.

But the whole day wasn't all about sharks. There were many other denizens of the deep. Some of them were downright cute. Cute in the way that they're tiny and couldn't possibly hurt me, even though they're straining with all of their willpower to do so.

Like this little guy:


Seahorses always look incredibly nervous to me. I never know why.

Of course, at the other end of the spectrum are the sea creatures that will cause you extreme pain even though they lack the brain capacity to form coherent thoughts.


I should have been more specific...

I was actually talking about jellyfish.



The Aquarium had a special installation devoted exclusively to jellyfish and their millions of stinging cells. It was nice, and I managed to snap several pretty neat photos:




Mrs. Rev was stung by a jellyfish a few days before these pictures were taken. Bastard jellyfish.

Other neat photos include this one:



and this one:


If I had a nickel for every time a child shouted "Nemo!" at this fish, I would have enough nickels to put in a sock and effectively menace those children.

Next, we headed outside to the Touch Tank (giggle), where Subastar got the chance to molest a horseshoe crab.


"Don't pretend you don't like it"

We saw a penguin feeding too!



This was, unsurprisingly, much calmer than the shark feeding. Basically the penguins waited patiently until the woman shoved a fish or two down their throats and then turned away when they felt they had had enough. It was all very orderly. Polite, even.


"May I see the wine list, please?"

My favorite part, however, was an uninvited guest who witnessed the free fish distribution and wanted to get in on the action.


"I'mapenguinI'mapenguinI'mapenguinI'mapenguin..."

Of course he was turned away, as the dining room requires formal wear.

Badoom-Ching!

The real stars of the day were the sea lions, though.


Yes, say hello.

There was a big sea lion performance with lots of neat tricks and flips and such.






"No pictures!"

I like sea lions. To me, they seem to be fishy, 300-pound dogs with flippers.

Flipperpuppies, if I may coin a term.

And so after the show, Subastar and I signed up for a more up-close meet and greet with one of the sea lions. Here's Duke:



He did a few neat tricks for us, blew on a whistle and dispensed fashion advice.






"Psst... You might want to reconsider the pink shirt, given your naturally pale/pinkish skin tone"

And the best part was, he gave us both kisses!





The romance of the smooch was lessened by watching Duke gulp down a whole raw fish between each kiss. It was scratchy and smelled like sushi. I've had worse, though.

So thank you, Duke for the lovely afternoon, and for not biting my face off.

After Subastar and I bid farewell to the Aquarium, we wandered around the boardwalk at Coney Island for a little bit, and bought some street food. Subastar is without fear as far as, shall we say "unlicensed delicacies" are concerned. She grew up having her stomach strengthened at the roadside stalls of Bombay, India. She's got to have developed some sort of gastronomic superpowers as a result.


Oh, Matter Eater Lad, I still hate you.

Even with that extra confidence, we stuck with things we could readily identify and of which we could observe the preparation:


Mango!

and


Corn!

Being thus fed we thanked Coney Island for its hospitality and not giving us tetanus and jumped on the train to head back to civilization (temporarily for Subastar, she unfortunately lives in Jersey).

I had the presence of mind to time the ride back all the way up the N line, and I was home in a scant hour and 35 minutes. It's ok, I had a book.

I think that about does it for my Aquarium adventure. Hope you guys had a good time.

Peace out,

Rev

My Vacation: Part Two, but really one because this happened first.

Hello again.

Despite the length of the last entry, I am not out of vacation pictures to share with you folks. Don't worry, I won't talk more of hiking (though I do have several videos and dozens more pictures and it was awesome) but instead will talk about what happened earlier on my vacation.

Kaz and Zippy getting married?

Nah.

Well, sure, it happened:


Mr. and Mrs. Kaz, or Mr. and Mrs. Zippy? The polls are open.

And we here at With Great Blogging Comes Great Responsibility love them both dearly and certainly wish them well, but as for varied and colorful pictures and an all day narrative, I'm gonna have to go with the roller coaster park.


(sigh) OK, regular readers of this blog: let's just assume for simplicity's sake that that is a picture of a wholesome family and that the father is wearing pants. Moving on.

Yes, -2 and special guests headed to Sandusky Ohio in search of thrills, chills and hour long waits amidst long lines of Midwesterners.


This ride was open, and then it closed and the majority of the line left. 10 minutes later, it reopened. -2 wins again.

But there I go getting ahead of myself again. Rewind to late the night before, when our weary travelers arrive at Cedar Point's hotel. We collapse into fitful, excited sleep as children do on the the night before Christmas.

Also as children do, we made Jesse sleep on the floor.


Definition of wariness: the girl on the right, dangerously close to -2.

Having been guests of Cedar Point, we got the bonus of having an extra hour's access to the park, before all the other people were allowed in. Here's what that looked like:


I think the husky kid in the muscle shirt is confused.

Oh yes, cast of characters. In addition to Jesse and Kyle, Casey and Michael rocked the house.


Casey (in yellow): Hey, why don't we get nicknames?
Michael (in purple): Yeah, what the Hell?

You may recognize them from past adventures such as 4th of July, 2009.

As soon as we got in the gates we made a dash for the Millenium Force. My word. For some reason as I'm typing this, the best descriptive phrase I have for the Millenium Force is "a big, beautiful blue bitch of a roller coaster."

I'm gonna go with it.



We were understandably excited about the prospect of riding this sucker. According to the official page, it boasts a 300 foot vertical drop and speeds of approximately 92 MPH.


Photoshop contest begins now.

It was amazing. It was and remains my favorite roller coaster, probably of life. Here's a little taste for you:



Now just imagine me next to you doing an incredible impression of a Betsy Wetsy doll. It was fantastic.

Next up was another ride that was also crazy fun. The Top Thrill Dragster.


That tower is 420 feet tall. That is the car near the apex.

This ride is interesting, as it's not really a roller coaster. Basically it is that tower with a length of track leading to it and away from it.

You sit in the car, get strapped in and then are shot towards the tower, reaching approximately 120 MPH. The car goes to the top of the tower and straight down again, and then the ride is over.



The good news is that you're accelerated from 0 to 120 in four seconds.

The bad news is that the ride lasts a total of 17 seconds.

For me, that's a short enough span of time to convince myself that it was all a dream.


Thank GOD!

Exhilarating, but over way too fast. Story of my life.

We went on a bunch of other rides, too.

The Power Tower, besides being a dynamite euphemism, is also a thrill ride (giggle) at Cedar Point. And it looks like, well:


Winner of the 1998 Most Blatantly Phallic Attraction Award!

With the Power Tower you get the choice of being launched up from the bottom, or being slowly raised to the top and dropped down. Choose the second one. It's far more terrifying. The suspense involved in dangling your legs 240 feet off the ground before it drops you to the earth completely takes your mind off the fact that the ride is a giant steel wang.

We went on the park's two wooden roller coasters, the Mean Streak and the Gemini. We also went on one of the newer (and awesome) coasters, the Maverick.



No...

The Maverick is a coaster that throws you around a lot. You get up to about 70 MPH and it has all sorts of twists and turns and a fantastic warning on Cedar Point's webpage:

"May not accommodate Guests of Exceptional Size."



But alas, as seems to be a theme on this vacation, the rains came.

It started drizzling on us as we were in line for the Mantis. We ended up waiting an hour and 15 minutes total in that line. The rain let up just enough for them to send a half dozen carloads of riders through, and we made it just in time.

Because then it really started raining.

Fortunately for all involved we were able to find some shelter and watch people stream towards the exit. Also, as evidenced by our camping trip, a little rain does not bother us in the least. There were some rides that were still operating, regardless of precipitation, so we went on those.

For example, The Wicked Twister:


A cool ride made cooler because you can pretend it's part of a giant Unicorn.

You start in the middle, shoot up in one direction, then fall back and go up the other spiral. Rinse and repeat.

Also, in the heaviest rain we hid in a sheltered area that housed a game of skill/chance. In this game, the prizes were all Zippo lighters. You had to try to push them off the playing field into a slot to win the lighter. I had several quarters and so gave everyone a chance to win. None of us did.

The real entertainment started when a young man came along and decided that he HAD to have one of those lighters. He tried his had a few times, then called in the big guns: his Dad.


Damn you, NASCAR lighter. Stop taunting me!!!

This started out as entertaining, then amusing, then uncomfortable, then downright sad as the man tried time and time again to win one of those lighters, and by extension, the love of his son.

He went through probably five or six bucks, one quarter at a time before he came to his senses and realized the only things that kid needed a Zippo for were to:

1) Start smoking and accidentally burn the house down
2) Look cool in front of his buddies and accidentally burn the house down

or

C) Straight up burn the house down.

They went on to seek their fortunes elsewhere, and so did we.

Our fortunes came in the form of the maXair.


As shiny and neat as this color-enhanced promotional photo looks, it's even cooler to ride in the rain.

I was seated between Kyle and a loud girl who asserted at points on the ride that she was falling out (she wasn't) and that she was going to die (she didn't).

Other than my eardrums being screamed out, another wonderful thing happened as we were on the maXair: It stopped raining.

As soon as the giant rotating pendulum stopped, we unbuckled ourselves and ran off to ride our favorite coasters again.

It was a long and eventful day into night, and we took one last serene look around the park from the top of the Power Tower at all the neon and other lights twinkling on the shore of Lake Erie.



"Thank you, Cedar Point" I thought, "for a lovely day."

And then it dropped us screaming to earth.

See you around, folks

-Rev



P.S.


Dolphin Shirt!