You know what makes me happy about spring and summer in Orlando? The epic thunderstorms. Listening to one right now. I absolutely love just sitting here and listening to them go. This is a good one, too, a strike every 5-10 seconds. And we're under a tornado watch. I'm looking at the roof of the next building, and it's raining so hard that the gutters can't keep up - it's overflowing everywhere. Florida during storm season: I love you. (And as I typed that, lightning totally just hit within 100 yards)

Two weeks of getting to work at 6:30 am every day, 6 days a week? *drops dead* I'm sooo glad the craziest week is over. It'll still be busy this week, and then next week is back to peace and quiet until summer! Although Space Mountain closes for long-term refurb on the 19th, so the morning Extra Magic Hours are moving to Frontierland. BOO. I'm training two CPs next week being sent over from Space... and with the earlier open on Thursday, we start at 5:30 am (instead of the usual 6:30). *dies again* But I got my one-year service pin! Yaaaay! My first year of selling my soul finally has something to show for it! XDD

But sana_chan, richiied, and Dustin came to visit! YAAAAAY! It was so awesome to see them again, 'cause it's been like 3 freakin' years! So much playing in the parks happened! I FINALLY got all my pictures for the last month uploaded yesterday, you can see them here.

Went to GameStop and traded in some video games! I picked up the new Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Good game! The missions really aren't very difficult. But the best feature? Walking into a scratch card shop, buying a scratch card, and actually using the stylus to scratch it off. It's a new level of addicting. XD I also got Picross, which is a nonogram puzzle game. So far, it's all a bit too easy, so hopefully they'll get more challenging.

The X-Files rewatch continues! We're up to the last few episodes of season 3, and about to start the season 4 awesomeness.

I also continue to run once a week or so. Usually about 3-4 miles, which I can do in relative comfort, keeping up a 10-11 min/mile pace. Yay! I also reward myself with Taco Bell when I'm done. :P Less than 9 months until race day! I might also do the Everest 5k Challenge and/or Tower of Terror 13k to get a little practice beforehand.

I've been trying to get myself drawing a lot, too. I've got a big giraffe colored pencil piece I'm working on now, and a couple of others I'm playing around with. I'm trying to find ways to make myself finish stuff, because no matter how excited I am about a piece, I tend to get lazy and not finish it. So I'm thinking I might start posting "work in progress" pieces in the scraps section of DA. Maybe that will help keep me motivated to finish things.

And books! ( Errrr..book! )

And this week we have some guest!fail!

(man and his huge party approaches me with a GAC card at the Splash exit)
Me: Actually, sir, with this card you're going to go right through our FastPass line.
Man: Oh, no I'm not! We're coming through here.
Me: Sir, the people who have these cards go through the FastPass line.
Man: We've been doing this for 16 years. We're coming through here.
Me: I'm sorry, sir, but all of those Guest Assistance Cards go through the FastPass line.
Man: Then you need to call a supervisor immediately, because you're in way over your head. You have no idea what you're dealing with.

...WTF? Aside from being a prick, the guy sounded like a cliche supervillain. If I didn't care about my job, I would have made a snappy comeback to that...

And, also, a guest!fail award to the guy at FastPass Return who called me a "Nazi" because I made them wait until their time on the FastPass. Again, if I didn't care about my job, I might have saluted him...

And a big collective guest!win award to all the guests who brought their patience this week, and remained cheery and friendly despite standing in line for hours. Those whom I joked around with... you were a huge relief!

...OMG, a real update!! One with a lot of randomness.

We had our Frontierland trainer outing last week, which rocked. First they fed us all breakfast at Splash. Then we went to DAK, and rode a Safari truck from storage out to the attraction, got our own ride through the safari, and then rode back. We got a free lunch, did a big scavenger hunt, then got a tour of Dinosaur's tower and got backdoored. So much win! And we got paid for all that. XD

The parks are PACKED. Holy crap. I think Disney was caught unawares by this year's Spring Break rush. Recession? What recession? They've had to extend park hours and/or add extra Spectros this week almost every day. Oh! And I finally saw Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It!... and LOVED it. It's everything that the new day parade should have been. I have way too much fun with it. I got lots of pics, I just need to get around to uploading them. I also finally met the fairies! Tink was AWESOME. She was afraid of leprechauns. XD I got pics of all that too that I need to get up.

Character audition... as thought, back in the pool! They combined it with a CP audition, so there were like 300 people there. I didn't get out til like 8, and I was one of the first ones there. But I'm back in the pool... yet again. (They also turned away HORDES of CPs... if they took any, it wasn't much)

Swallow-tail kites are back for the summer! Eee! I've seen them twice in the last week, right in front of my apartment complex.

And at the same time - the rains are finally back! There's been showers on and off today. We need it badly. Hasn't done anything to stop the fires up in Volusia, though. Yesterday the park smelled strongly of smoke, and when I did the morning ride-through, everything at the top of C-lift (that tied-up Brer Rabbit) was really hazy. And we're a long way away!

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is out... I totally need to go to GameStop and trade in some stuff and get it. :P And DDR: Disney Groove for the Wii comes out on the 2nd! WOO!

And OMG HULU.COM FINISHED ADDING ALL THE SEASON ONE FLIPPER EPISODES. That totally made my day. XDDDD

I totally got my roommates hooked on X-Files. We've started at the beginning and are watching the whole series beginning to end, 2-3 episodes a night. :D Half of the episodes I'd totally forgotten because I saw them once and never again. :P

Also... Free Willy 4. No joke. Bindi Irwin and Beau Bridges. XDDD

And in a last note, recent Guest!win quotes:
"Why does the water smell bad?"
(kid gets off, soaking wet) "I took a HUGE dump!"

HAPPY FUN WEEKEND TIMEZ!!! XD

...not that I did much this week. I got pulled to do requals the entire week! Hooray for requals!! XD (When we change something in the OG, we have to bring each CM in, one by one, and explain the changes to them. It rocks.) I pretty much kicked back in the training room and took turns with the other trainers going out to bump people out of rotation. And I got trainer pay for it. WIN.

I also helped teach an evacuation class this week. HAH, we ROCKED it. First, our new batch of CPs kicked some ass and did really well. Second, we trainers planned out our ideal class and executed nicely. Third... you can't go wrong when you get to play the totally loony guest in the log. XD ("My log has PIXIE DUST ON IT!" "The mean voice told me to keep my feet inside the log! I was just trying to be like that frog!") Or when you show the trainees how to trackwalk after an evac by marching them through the mountain singing Christmas carols. And the Rocky theme as you run up the 99 stairs up C-lift. XDDD ...or "hand-check!" CMs on ride-through. HEE! (Sadly, that's the only time I've ever been the one evac'ed off any ride... and it was all planned!)

In Guest!Win this week... the one that puked off the chicken bridge onto a log filled with guests below. You made my day, in such a sick-but-hilarious way. XD

And god help me, the music from "Celebrate a Dream Come True" is growing on me. It's catchy. Anyone got a rehearsal CD? XDDDD (...what's even more sad is that I've already picked up half the routine for a couple of units, including the show stop :P) I also really need to go to MK and see "Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It!" in person, because I watched it on YouTube and it looks like everything that the new day parade SHOULD have been. And 'cause I wanna get my ass out in the street and shake my tailfeather. XD (sana_chan... MUST DO IT. XDDD)
(PS... how do I learn stiltwalking? Because that looks WAY too fun.)
(PPS... anyone got a rehearsal CD for that one? ;))

But YAY for trainer outings! (the first in like 2 years, apparently) Yay for getting paid for a day of playing next week! I'm psyched. They haven't told us where we're going yet (they want it to be a surprise) but they did say we're allowed to dress casually (tank tops, jeans, sandals even!).

So I'm considering auditioning for the Encore Cast Choir show this summer. However, since I haven't done any form of singing audition since middle school (runner up for the solo... GRRR!) I'm a bit intimidated and lost by the process. :P Still not even really sure how to pick a good audition song or 16-bar segment.

I also saw Coraline with ariellen last week! It was really good, but I think if I'd been a little kid I would have been scared shitless. It was much creepier than Nightmare Before Christmas or Corpse Bride.

The roomies and I watched ESB last night... and found a Hidden Mickey on Cloud City. "NEEERD!" (And what looks like an Ugnaught orally pleasuring Han Solo. Just sayin'.)

Aaaaand books! ( February 2008 books! )

I had my last Candlelight shows for the year last night. But OMG, what a show to end on!

Edward James Olmos? Freakin' best Candlelight narrator I've ever seen! He was so passionate, so comfortable up there, and he really put his heart into it. What's more, he was so incredibly gracious, and clearly just happy to be there. As we filed into the wings just before the show, he stood there, grinning, shaking hands with every single cast choir member, and sincerely thanking us for being there. He's the only narrator I saw this year to do that - most hang out in their dressing room. During the show itself, I really loved that he repeated a lot of parts in both English and Spanish. While the show narration is generally English-only, there's so many guests that speak Spanish as their first language - and for many, that's their only language. So it was really neat to see that group of guests really be included. And his introduction and closing comments were some of the most heartfelt I've seen. He was cracking jokes at the cast choir during the second show, about how we could never hear him at the top of the tree (OMG, the fans are so loud there I can't even hear myself sing). And the choir responded to his enthusiasm... we really had a fantastic 8:15 show. At the end of the Hallelujah Chorus, he turned around and looked at us, wiping tears from his eyes. That sort of praise was just incredible. :D

I also put his family/friends on Splash during the afternoon yesterday. I wasn't really paying attention - I was chatting with a first time guest who was waiting to come through our wheelchair entrance. A Guest Relations person came up and flashed the purple PEP pass, and I waved his group through and went back to the conversation I was having with the guest. At the time, I happened to be suggesting the Candlelight Procession to them as one of the Epcot highlights, giving them tips, telling them about it. When I sent them on into the station, I turned around to chat with the Guest Relations guy, and found that Edward James Olmos had been standing a few feet away that whole time, chatting on his cell phone while he waited for his group to get off the ride (they went twice anyways). Too cool! :D

For the second time in a week, Splash went down two minutes before opening today. :P We had it "parked," and no logs had moved in about 5 minutes. I was the tower opener, so I was just chillin', listening to the morning track talk, and waiting. Well, everyone gets up to go to walkdown, and all of a sudden the console alarm goes off. I turn around... "...WTF?! For reals? NON-RESETTABLE!!!" Oh, Splash. :P It goes down for refurb on the 4th, and I think Bubba (the computer) is telling us he wants it already. :P Maybe that means I'll actually get scheduled Bears for once. :P

I also saw a wood stork at Shades of Green on my way home tonight. Another lifer! Rock!

Merry Christmas!!

Work is done, presents are opened, and now it's time to kick back!

The parks have, of course, been insane. I had log wash yesterday morning, thus was out of rotation from 6:45 to 9:45... went into rotation until 10:45, when I got my parade bump out. Yay for only one hour in rotation! Yaaaay for double day parades! I then nearly lost my voice doing parade, screaming "stay to your right!" And eventually, "...hold up this hand! It makes an 'L'! That's your left! Hold up the other hand! It doesn't make an 'L'! That's your right! Stay to your right!!" ...and of course, because people still didn't listen, there was such a bad traffic jam at the crosswalk that we had to start turning people back mid-crossing, practically shoving them off the street as the parade started.

Also, there are 37 elves in the Once Upon a Christmastime Parade. Just sayin'.

Today was crazy... we had about a 100 minute wait at Splash. But for all the waiting, few people were cranky about it. Most were very cheery, and I had some great conversations with guests who'd already been in line over an hour.

Oh, and for lulz, Sunday morning while picking logs, we found an empty 99 Oranges mini-bottle in a log. Party on Splash Mountain, yo! ;) We had it proudly on display in the break room until a coordinator got cranky about it and threw it out. :p

And through it all, nature gave me a cold for Christmas. I've blown my nose so much that I got a bloody nose. Yippee!

And of course, the Christmas presents today! This year's haul so far:
-4 GB Compact Flash card
-Spare camera battery
-1.4x tele-extender for my 400mm lens (methinks next week I should go out to Merritt Island to play with it...)
-"The Beauty of the Beasts" by Ralph Helfer
-"Steve and Me" by Terri Irwin
-"Alex and Me" by Irene Pepperberg
-Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass, for DS
-Super Smash Brothers Brawl, for Wii
-"How to Draw Disney-Pixar Characters" (those books, while simplistic, have some AWESOME reference info)
-"The Book of Animal Ignorance" by John Mitchinson and John Lloyd
-Mad About You season 2 DVDs
-Lenox Mickey Mouse ears ornament
-Mickey Mouse ornament
-Polar fleece pullover

Still got a bit more to come, too! :D

Other than that, I'm just relaxing. Slowly moving stuff over to my new apartment, which now is getting some furniture thanks to my new roomie's awesome mom! Also trying to draw a bit - did this one the day. Also feeling the need to do some Enchanted sketches. And I'm totally hooked on this year's Tokyo Disneyland Christmas parade music, "Mickey's Jolly Christmas Snowtime." Seriously, everything they write is so freakin' catchy! Got my last two Candelight shows tomorrow night, too!

Everyone have a happy holiday!

This update is all over the place. Consider yourselves warned. XD

Cast holiday celebration stuff arrived this week! WOO! Two weeks until 40% discount! XD

I'm getting trained on log wash next week. Yay! That means super-early shifts when I'm scheduled for it (6:45 am) as well as a 30 cent premium. Win!

I finally got my floating holidays scheduled for early next month. I'm still trying to decide what I'm going to do on that 4-day weekend. Maybe visit Tampa and/or Sarasota. Or maybe a trip up to Atlanta to visit the Georgia Aquarium. I can't decide!

Union-negotiated raises went into effect a couple of weeks ago. More win!

Hanson came to Splash this week! And I was suddenly taken back to my high school fangirl days. The funniest thing was? NO ONE recognized them. They hung out under the Frontierland train station for awhile and no guests even gave them a second glance, let alone bothered them. And then I got MMMBop stuck in my head. They played at House of Blues, but I had to work. :(

Gas prices are dripping like a rock, and that is win. They haven't been this low since like March. WOO!

Candlelight rehearsals are going well! I had sectionals this week, and learned more in those two rehearsals than I had in all the other ones put together.

The parks have been CRAZY this week. Like, it felt like summer, 90 minute waits and all. I finally realized it's because of the 3-days weekend, but I'm still astounded. It's mid-October! And on early close days, too! Today, the line just to get a FastPass stretched all the way up to Thunder. Last night, apparently there was still a 90-minute wait near close.

Story of Awesome for the week? As I was going into station one day, there was a little boy coming out the exit, singing a song about peeing in his pants. Epic win!

So my fantasy football team got SPANKED this week, 'cause all my players decided to suck. Gah. At least the Seahawks won, though! :D

Been reading like all the time. Oh, how I've missed doing that! Finished 4 books so far this month, on the way to 5. And my copy of Brisingr arrived from the library today! WOO! That was fast. :D So now I will bury myself in that (and put "Inkspell" on hold again).

Candlelight Processional rehearsals are going well! It's a bit of a challenge... I haven't done choir in years, so I'm slowly getting back into the swing. I'm also really learning it on the fly, since rehearsals go fast. Sight reading was never really my strong point, but I'm really working on it! It doesn't help that I'm an alto, and thus not the melody. :P I've got the rehearsal CD though, so that helps. But it's really fun - rehearsals are a blast. You work hard, but they really want it to be fun for everyone, so they're lively and lighthearted. I also usually have time to kill between the end of work and the start of rehearsal, so I end up hanging around Epcot for a couple of hours. I love to go to that back corner of France, in that garden, and sit down on a bench and read. :D

Splash is going well. The mountain is sort of giving us the finger at this point. She's telling us she's ready for annual refurb by going 101 every 10 minutes. See, every morning when we power up, we hit the "Track Open" button, and Frieda (the computer) tells us "Have a Zippa Dee Doo Dah Day." (No, she literally tells us. Frieda has a voice synthesizer.) And I think, when she says that, that's her way of giving us the finger, for we're usually down within an hour or two. :P

Movie night kinda got rained out. I say kinda because it was supposed to be on Tom Sawyer Island at 9pm... and at 8:58 it opened up and poured. So we hightailed it to the Walt Disney Story Theater on Main Street and watched it there instead. It was National Treasure 2, which is a pretty good one. And there was free pop and candy and ice cream, which is always good. Everyone was disappointed it wasn't on the island, though - we were all looking forward to getting to be on the island late at night more than the movie itself. :P

Hung out with mattore at MK and Epcot this week! YAY! We saw the most crackstastic Dream Along. They were short a Goofy, so they did the opening number, but it had no character voices at all, and Peter and Wendy and Hook and Smee and all the princes and princesses came out and random fireworks shot off. And then they just did a set. Good times! Oh, and the new, updated, sharper-resolution Illuminations globe? WIN. I can actually tell what the images are now! I sat there going "...I never knew that's what that was!"

Wii playing has happened a lot this week. Still chugging away on Lego Indiana Jones - 81.9% now. I'm one artifact shy of having Temple of Doom 100% complete (and thank god, too, 'cause I HATED some of those levels, like Escape from the Mines and Temple of Kali)

New Grey's this week! Finally!! XDDD

Yaaaaaay weekend! :D Had a busy week last week, have a busy week this week.

Tuesday - Went to SeaWorld with ariellen! OMG, so much fun! I haven't been there in forever. I loved Blue Horizons. It was like Cirque-meets-dolphins. Gorgeous music. It totally breaks my "I hate dolphin shows without education" rule, but it was just too pretty. And since when can you not even go poolside to pet the dolphins without fish? I understand why you can only have fish in that one area (so they can monitor feeding) but why can't you just go wait poolside and hope a dolphin swims by anymore? Ugh. I loved that there were no lines, though! We waited like 20 minutes for Journey to Atlantis (which still kicks San Diego's all over the place) and only had to wait for Kraken when we wanted front row, otherwise it was a walk-on. I got an annual pass and added Busch Gardens onto it as well. So now I have an excuse to go there! Photos for the day are here!

Wednesday - Cast preview of the Halloween parade! I had to kill time until midnight, so I went to Downtown Disney and saw The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. It was pretty entertaining, but it really felt like they just reused all the plot points from the first two movies. And I kept getting distracted by the fact that Rachel Weisz was not Evy. It felt wrong. No offense to Maria Bello, she wasn't horrible, she just wasn't Rachel Weisz. Loved Brendan Fraser, though, as always. Then onto the cast preview! It was NUTS. OMG, there were so many people there, and they were practically all CPs, LOL. Ihe parade was awesome, though. It's changed a lot since 2002. OMG, they had the hyenas from The Lion King! And I got lots of candy of course. And then it took 25 minutes to get the bus back to WestClock because so many people were trying to get back there. :P Took a few photos. They're pretty crappy, but they're here.

Thursday - So I signed in at work and got a message to go have a meeting with a manager. I wondered what I was getting in trouble for, but there were like three other people going. So we get back there, and they take us all by pargo to the back of Main Street, and start walking us through the tunnel to the base of the castle. The trip? A surprise visit to tour the Cinderella Castle suite! OMG, that place is gorgeous. It's smaller than it looks in videos and pictures. LOVE the TV that's a mirror until you turn it on. Magic Mirror FTW! And the bathroom ROCKS. The tub is a jacuzzi, and in the ceiling above you there's lights that look like stars. The whole suite is so ornate, it's mind-blowing! I got pictures on my cell phone, but alas I can't get them onto my computer. Here's the GIS for it

Had a lot of day parade this week! I am in LOVE with playing with bubbles for my PACtivity. It's so simple, and the kids adore it. Seriously. Most popular game I've found yet. Just start blowing the bubbles and within minutes you'll have a whole herd of kids chasing you around and popping bubbles. Sooo much fun. I've also been getting a lot of 7:15 (trackwalker/tower opener) shifts on Sundays, which rocks. I'm pretty comfortable opening tower now, even when I have days like yesterday when I had to call maintenance 4 times just to get the mountain open because everything kept breaking down. :P The parks have been DEAD, too, which rocks. I <3 offseason. On Friday, the longest wait we had all day was 10 minutes. Most of the time, you could walk right on. We never even opened FastPass. <3.

Candlelight Processional rehearsals start this week! Yay! I picked up my music last week, and now I just gotta figure out how to get to the rehearsal location.

We have movie night at work next week. Woo! They're holding it out on Tom Sawyer Island, which should be really cool. They have like 8 different movies to vote on, but all of them sound good, so I can't decide. :P (Ratatouille, National Treasure 1 or 2, Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, or 3, Fantastic Four, and Cars)

Seahawks lost on opening day yesterday. D: My Fantasy Football team, however, won, so that rocks. And if I'm pointing and laughing at Tom Brady, does that make me a bad person? Saw the end of the Chargers-Panthers game, too. OUCH. Two Monday Night Football games tonight, yaaay!

After nearly 4 years, my hard drive is finally dying. D: I'm trying to back it up but I'm having trouble because a lot of the files give me a "cyclic redundancy check" error when I try to copy them. I can open the files just fine - look at the pictures, listen to the music, etc - but it won't let me copy them. :/ I'm trying to decide if I should just replace the harddrive on this one and maybe upgrade the RAM, but then at that point I'm starting to near the cost of a new laptop anyways. But other than the skeevy harddrive (which only became skeevy within the last month) and low RAM (which is easy enough for me to upgrade on my own anyways) this one works perfectly, so I don't NEED a new one... ah, decisions, decisions. But at this point I'm really more concerned with making sure I get my drive backed up.

I finally found a new apartment! Yaaaaay! No more 30-mile-each-way commute! No more paying the whole rent and utility bills by myself! :D It's a really nice little place down in Hunter's Creek, sharing it with two other girls. I'll be moving in there about a month or so from now, so now I gotta start planning moving stuffs. It's a temporary place until January (that's when the girl whose room I'm taking comes back) but as January gets closer I'll figure out where I'll be after that.

Oh, and this week's Sign That Disney Parks Are Dying In The Bad Economy? Fantasmic is going to only two days a week in January. Along with a whole lot of entertainment show offering cuts in September (but FINALLY that horrid Pocahontas show is getting the axe - that's 10 years overdue!). Getting ready for a slow offseason much? Although the weakness of the American dollar is reportedly bringing 180,000 Brazilian tourists here this summer. Yippee.

I did finally finish scanning my Elizabeth Weir drawing, and it's here! There's a LOT I see wrong with it, but that's why I'm still trying to develop my colored pencil skills. I have so many ideas and not enough time. I get really inspired while standing out at the Wheelchair Assist position at work. I get all ADD and stare up at the tree branches and imagine what it would be like to be an itty bitty person up there in the branches, facing down the squirrels and lizards and riding around on the cardinals. And I space out like until I suddenly realize that a guest has been shouting at me and trying to get my attention for quite some time, probably to ask me for the billionth time how far they are from the front of the line, as if asking repeatedly will make them get there faster. But yes, much imagination happens there.

I decided that I'd like to sign up for the Candlelight Processional Cast Choir this year. Eep! I haven't sung in a choir since middle school. I kinda miss it. So hopefully I can get into that. Sign-ups are August 1, but being new to the process I'm not sure how fast it fills up...

Idina Menzel is performing at House of Blues this coming weekend and I kinda wanna go, but I'm not sure if there's tickets left...

Encore Cast Choir's summer show is also this week, and I'd like to see that.

FOUR DAYS UNTIL THE X-FILES. :D

Long time no update! The basics:
-Finally down to 40-hour weeks! However, Casting continues to hire morons, so we'll see if that lasts. (Let's face it - if you can't even pass the Splash assessment after five days of training, you really are not the brightest crayon in the box. And that's being polite.)
-psychoticorca came to visit for a week and pick up shifts!
-My air mattresses has a hole somewhere. Yay for having a backup! (Yes, I'm too cheap to buy a real bed. Or any other furniture for that matter.)
-Hanging out at the parks with ariellen, salukfan, and princealia!
-Got my picture taken with Indy after the stunt show at Studios. <3
-LESS THANK TWO WEEKS UNTIL THE X-FILES.

Pleasure Island is closing September 27. BOO. Actually, I could care less, except that the Adventurer's Club is LOVE. I will miss teh funny and teh booze there. KUNGALOOSH! Their strawberry daquiri machine was down last Monday, so no kungalooshes. BOO. But $2 beers all night. YAY!

Saw "Get Smart" last week... loved it! Funny stuff. I wish I remembered more from the original TV series, but I only have vague recollections of watching it on Nick at Nite back in the day. Steve Carell was hilarious, and Anne Hathaway always does a fantastic job.

Brazilian tour group season is here. D: Seriously, getting them to get in and stay seated is like playing whack-a-mole - you yell at one to sit down and three others pop up. BRAZIL FOR THE EPIC FAIL. (Also, apparently me, ariellen, and salukfan have the power to summon them by clapping and chanting. We're sorry, princealia, we really are!)

Also, it is a sad day when I have to tell our managers and coordinators "You can't reset A-lift with 2 logs on it. Only one! You have to jog one over!" because they keep trying to do it and think the mountain is broken. You do this reset like EVERY DAMN DAY. Prease to know own attraction?

Brendan Fraser was at Universal last Friday. I was this close to calling in and going to see him, but I was a good girl and went to work instead. (My reward was a 3+ hour downtime at the end of the day)

Been trying to draw a lot, too. When I was hanging out at Studios one day, I spent a loooong time talking to the sketch/watch artist, and he pointed me to a good art store up in Winter Park. So I stopped in there on Tuesday and picked up some stuff. (I keep an art supply list just like a grocery store list) Been playing with some nice bristol paper and colored pencils, and also trying Col-Erase pencils for sketching. And when I'm at work, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking up pieces I want to do. (If I'm at virtually any position except grouper, most likely I'm working on autopilot and thinking about art or something else instead of the task at hand) If I could do nothing but sit at home and draw all day, every day, I'd be the happiest camper in the world. (I'd also like to start taking commissions to make a few extra bucks, but I honestly don't think that I really have the skills to do so) I did finish an Elizabeth Weir portrait, but Photoshop keeps dying on me so I haven't been able to scan it yet. Also decided to join animalart100 to get more animal stuff done...

I've totally been on a movie-watching kick lately. Not new movies, but stuff I've seen a billion times: all the classic Star Wars trilogy, Mulan, Ella Enchanted, Gone With the Wind, Mary Poppins, etc... and then I watch them each about 50 times.

And it's been ages since I posted anything regarding stuff I've read, so here's an abridged update of stuff I can remember finishing recently: ( Finally trying to catch up on some of the reading stuffs... )

This random post brought to you by too many beers.

ariellen arrived this week! WOO! She and her mom crashed here for a couple of days before her CP arrival date, and put up with my furniture-less apartment. :P Woo! The Disney geek factor in Orlando just skyrocketed! XD Watching Enchanted together was lulz... because we both totally said the words along with the movie. XD

We had fun at work earlier in the week, though... during a lightning storm we got a power surge that reset the ride... and when we went out to do the reset, we found that the flume pumps hadn't come back on and half the logs (still full of guests, BTW) were suddenly sitting on the bottom of the dry flume. Doh! :P Prease to evac? Turns out that Magic Kingdom (which had most of the major attractions go 101) got off easy - Epcot and Studios lost power completely. :P

I had a manager approach me yesterday and tell me he wanted me to talk to the coordinator of training about becoming a Splash trainer. We're WAY short on trainers right now, and he said even though I've only been here 3.5 months, he thought I'd be REALLY good at it and thought our area manager might be able to pull strings to get me a spot even though I'm not really eligible. I think it'd be awesome, not to mention the extra pay while doing trainer shifts... but at the same time I keep wondering if I really know enough to be able to do it. I have no problem at all with handling and explaining the basics of the attraction... but there's so much I don't know or have never actually encountered before that I think it'd be tough to really do a good job. Hrm.

(...I have, however, already racked up 8 Great Service Fanatic cards. /bragging moment)

Day parade almost got rained out today. We had to stop rolling out the ropes just as we started because of lightning (when Splash goes 101 for weather, so does parade). So at like 2:55 they go "It's back on! Roll out! Rainy Day Cavalcade is going out!" So we roll out like maniacs and get ready for Cavalcade... only to turn around and find the entire regular parade lined up, minus only the princess float. Thanks for the heads-up, guys. :P

Was gonna do Epcot today after work, but the rainstorm made me decide to come home instead. Was also gonna do a drawing for Lilo and Stitch's 6th birthday today, but was too lazy and went to bed at 7 pm last night instead. XD And now I sit here sketching and watching Newsies. This movie doesn't get NEARLY enough love.

Splash is special this week. Yeeeah. Wednesday we opened 1.5 hours late, were down for an hour after a mid-day e-stop evac, and then went down for another half hour in the afternoon. Today we opened two hours late. *pats Splash on the head patronizingly* I think Frieda (the computer) hates us. :P Oh, well. :P Tomorrow and Sunday I'm in at 7:15. I haven't come in that early since training. I hope there's training groups, 'cause I don't know that I remember how to open tower or trackwalk. :P

I've done a lot of PAC this week, too. Day and night parade yesterday, day parade today, and I'll have day parade for the rest of the weekend. Yaaaay parade! I tried to play beach ball with kids yesterday afternoon, but there was a storm coming in (parade stepped off ten minutes early) and the wind kept blowing the ball away. :P I made up for it at night parade, though. We had an AWESOME beach ball game with a bunch of teenagers before the 11pm parade. :P

Oh, and DDCT today? Thanks for the epic pre-parade fail. You should probably start the music BEFORE the grand marshal performers are 50-100 yards down the parade route, so that we can, you know, know it's coming and get out of the way? Just a thought. :P

I was a good girl and finished my Indy drawing! I think I really biffed up his face, but I LOVED shading the horse. Uploaded to DA here!

I've got a Legend of Mythica one in mind next, because that show amazes me. (Video on YouTube starts here with the intro, check the "Related Videos" for the rest of the parts) Tokyo DisneySea, how are you so awesome?

And dammit, I got hooked on Ikariam now! I blame it joesmom92 and droops. So now I immediately check that in the morning, as well as my two Travian servers. :P

Oh, and I totally blame ariellen for spurring on my favorite new crack!pairing: Jack Sparrow/Giselle. Because it just brings the lulz. :P

And on the Wii front...
LEGO Star Wars Complete Saga: 85%
LEGO Indiana Jones Original Adventures: 72%

It's my weekend! Finally! And a TWO DAY weekend! I'm back to 6 days next week again, but still only 47 hours. And I have parade 3 days this week - one Spectro and two day PAC. And I have morning trackwalker shifts all next weekend, which should be interesting... I haven't walked track since I trained. I hope I can remember where everything is. :P Yesterday was MK's Gay Day, which ROCKED. It's amazing - the folks in the redshirts were so wonderful. They're friendly, fun, can listen and follow directions, and don't whine to us about everything. Someone at Splash put it best: we were treated like HUMANS. So to everyone who attended Gay Day: THANK YOU! You guys rock. I just wish I could have seen the 1pm show insanity at Bears - I hear it's hilarious. XD (The line about that time stretched to the Haunted Mansion. For the COUNTRY BEARS.)

Went to DAK on Monday! I wandered for awhile, and stopped to see princealia at work. (I'll eat cake next time, I swear! XD) And salukfan happened to be there, too, so I hung out with them for a bit and we watched the parade. Tried to go see Nemo, but got in, sat down... and then they cancelled the show. Doh! So I went on Everest, front row. Not bad, but it was raining and that rain HURT at high speeds! Saw Festival of the Lion King (that show is always sheer awesome), did Maharajah Jungle Trek (Southeast Asian mammals! <3), saw the baby siamang and baby white cheek, did Kilimanjaro. Lots of fun! Pics up here.

Then... Pirate and Princess Party on Wednesday night!! WHEE! OMG, it was SO much fun. ( The P&P recap! Pirates! Princesses! Fangirling! Kirsten in costume! )

Of course, I picked up Lego Indiana Jones last week! Been playing it like crazy, and have finished Raiders of the Lost Ark and most of Temple of Doom so far. ( Lego Indiana Jones review! )

And in the random news:

Publix's Buy One Get One is WIN. Easy Mac AND Thomas bagels on that sale? I totally stocked up.

Andrew Stanton + John Carter of Mars = EPIC WIN.

Got my yellow ID this week! Wiiiiiiin!

Still trying to get back into the habit of drawing daily. I'd like to beef up my portfolio a bit and maybe start taking commissions here and there. I'm bout halfway done coloring the Indy drawing, and have an idea for a Legend of Mythica piece.

Happy hurricane season!

(Central Florida, BTW, you're doomed, as natural disasters seem to follow me.)

My sore throat never got better this week. In fact, it got worse. I could barely talk on Tuesday at work. (Trying to group at Splash using only hand gestures? LOLarity!) I didn't eat for about 72 hours because it hurt too much to swallow. Then whatever I had in my throat moved to my ear for a few days, and I battled vertigo. (which got REALLY bad whenever I was watching the logs go by. You know, like I have to do ALL DAMN DAY.) FINALLY I'm feeling better. A bit of dizziness now and then, but nothing unmanageable.

I think this is where I insert the famous "Hallelujah" chorus. Why? OMFG I ONLY HAVE FIVE DAYS NEXT WEEK. I CAN HAVE A LIFE AGAIN.

Wednesday night I might go to the Pirate and Princess Party, since it's the last one for the summer and I'm finally off. I need an excuse to wear my Giselle costume to MK! XD I just gotta run to Company D and get a ticket.

Did day PAC the last couple of days... I rolled for the first time ever today! For those who know the Disney parade routine, that's the person who walks behind the parade with the Big Ass Heavy Harness and actually physically rolls up the ropes along the street. I didn't lose my roll, and for that I am eternally grateful. :P (When you lose the roll, it's panic time for the managers, who them have to finish that entire section rolling it up on their arm and then sort it all out later. Plus it's really embarrassing.)

I finally get my yellow ID this week! Woo! Then I can stop feeling like a n00b! (Albeit one who was around when MK wasn't a CastZooming location and when Property Control was just a tent, but whatever!) And, you know, get health insurance and stuff. Bid information came out this week... they've hired so many new people lately that, on the full-time Frontierland Ops seniority list, I'm already #42 out of 88. Woo! Not even out of my 90 days yet, and I'm in the top 50%! ;)

King King got demolished in a fire this morning... that makes me sad, that's like a classic bit of Universal Studios right there.

And speaking of fire, on my way home last night, as I was going down 535 there was a HUGE plume of smoke (I could see it all the way from MK). Turns out there was a big brush fire in Hunter's Creek. It only made it to about 50 acres before it was contained, but the smoke was still hanging around this morning. While I was out setting up our FastPass area, the smell of smoke was REALLY thick. It more or less blew out by late morning but... ick.

I'm trying to get myself drawing more, so I've made a new "draw every day" rule. Too many ideas, too little time! (That Indiana Jones sketch is sitting next to me, half-colored...)

Lego Indiana Jones in TWO DAYS!

Splash had a 101 party today. It was great. We went 101 5 minutes after opening, and were down for 2 hours. Then a couple of hours after we reopened, we went down again for another hour. Yaaaaaay for sitting around all day! Apparently Paris Hilton was in the park, and visited Thunder while we were down the second time.

Toy Story Midway Mania cast previews were this weekend! I thought I wasn't gonna get to go because I was working the whole time, but I found out they extended the hours today, so I stopped by after work! Here's my thoughts... ( Not much to spoil, but under a cut anyways... )

I ended up going to Studios for a bit on Monday night to photograph Fantasmic. It was fun to try out my 400mm at a Disney park finally! Got some nifty closeups. It was also a dragon-less show. I'd never seen one of those before, in all the bajillion times I've seen Fantasmic at both parks. But really, it's done very well. If you didn't know there was supposed to be a big dragon there, you'd probably never know the difference. Pics from the night are up here!

Grey's this week? Addison Montgomery, how are you so awesome? Seriously.

Operation "Beat LEGO Star Wars So I Can Buy LEGO Indiana Jones Next Month With A Clear Conscience" progresses! I'm at 40% now after 25 hours of gameplay. I've beaten everything on story mode, and I'm going through everything in free play mode now to get all the True Jedis and red bricks and minikits. I bought Ghost Yoda, and he kicks ass. Ghost Ben Kenobi is up next, because Yoda is too damn slow when he walks and that annoys me. :P

And speaking of things Indy... AFHLALKGJKSLHK JUST OVER TWO WEEKS TO GO. Seriously. I'm SO psyched. I keep hoping to see Downtown Disney AMC theater announce a midnight showing, but they haven't done it yet. It's SO weird to see Indy tie-ins being pushed everywhere now. And new theatrical trailer out!! LOVE it. And you can pre-order the soundtrack at Amazon for $10. I already did! Is it May 22 yet?

So I should probably update this thing, huh? :P

Life has been crazy! I've been working all the time, which is awesome for my bank account. :P ( Adventures at Splash Mountain... )

In non-work news... I learned today that my apartment's dryers suck. :P I've got damp laundry scattered all around my apartment because it barely dried and I had no quarters left. :P

I've been having migraines liek whoa lately. I've had about 5 in the last two weeks. I'm taking Excedrin like candy. I stopped and got a small notebook today so I can start keeping track of sleep/food/drink I've had on days I get them, so I can TRY to find a pattern. I've gotten them badly off and on for about 7 years now and have yet to find a pattern. I don't know if the ones I'm getting now are stress or dehydration or what, but they're driving me insane.

I caught Block Party Bash at the public soft opening last weekend. Color me impressed - they kept it almost completely intact from DCA! All the acrobats and everything, the dances even looked similar. The Bug's Life float seemed different to me, but I could have just been remembering it wrong. Can't say the crowd seemed overly impressed, though. At least where I was standing by the Hat, no one seemed to go nuts over it. So, really no different than DCA. ;)

I also saw Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day last weekend, since Downtown Disney was showing it. YAAAAY, Amy Adams! The movie was all right, nothing spectacular. A lot of it really kind of dragged and didn't hold my interest. Amy was fun to watch, because her comedic timing is great. But it wasn't until the last 15-20 minutes that it really got good. I wouldn't send everyone rushing out to see it. It's enjoyable, but if you're not really interested in it to begin with, I'd wait for a DVD.

And ENCHANTED DVD TOMORROW!! XD I'm off, so I'm running out to Target to get it!

Lastly, I just have to post these lyrics here, because this song is so amazing, and it's totally describing my life now... ( The World You've Dreamed of Lately... )