The Gimcrack Miscellany

I just received a mass email containing a message that reminded me of the way Jerry McGuire wrote that memo, or mission statement, that totally went against the grain and was a huge risk on his part… and got him fired. The email is apparently a message written by Jay Leno himself, although I highly disbelieve this. It doesn’t matter though, because it truly is one of the best things I’ve read in a while.

I once personally offended someone by lashing out at them publicly because they sent me a mass email that was completely bullshit and only existed to perpetuate itself. That’s spam, and I don’t want it cluttering up my business email in-box. I’m sorry for hurting this person’s feelings and it’s something I won’t do again, but the point is that I don’t want to have to filter through this crap in addition to the crap that is sent from automated email spamming programs.

I must say that I was particularly impressed with the message I received and I don’t care who wrote it. I’m glad to have received it, and it’s really the first and only time I’ve ever received a mass email that I’ve enjoyed. It’s posted after the jump for your reading pleasure. And remember, I don’t really believe that Jay Leno had anything to do with it, but that doesn’t matter. In fact, I’ll hit up Snopes and check, be right back… yep I was right, however the quote in the last paragraph WAS Jay Leno’s. Go figure.

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Not five minutes after I published this post in which I go into some detail about amusement park accidents, a girl’s feet were both severed above the ankle by the Superman Tower of Power (formerly known as The Hellivator) at Kentucky Kingdom. These kinds of things do not happen very often. To have something like this happen at one of the closest amusement parks in proximity to me literally five minutes after I published my post is a little scary.

A couple days ago I was discussing this accident with someone who replied, “yeah, but she’ll be rich for the rest of her life.” True, she will be rich, but she will have no legs! If someone asked you if you would trade both of your legs at the age of 13 for a couple million bucks, what would you do? Especially if it involved having them ripped off by a thrill ride whose purpose was already to scare the living hellivator out of you. You would say no. Shut up, yes you wou-yes you-shut up dude-shut-yes you would.

What I’m really upset about is that they closed all similar rides at other amusement parks, including one of my personal favorites (and one I’m due to be riding in exactly a week from today), the Drop Zone at King’s Island. According to this article the Drop Zone is a much bigger and faster ride:

The Superman ride takes passengers up 177 feet and then drops them nearly 154 feet at 54 mph before stopping. Drop Zone takes riders up 264 feet and drops them at 67 mph.

I can attest to that, as I’ve been on the Drop Zone many times and it never EVER lets me down.

You know what this reminds me of? I had a dream about 2 747s crashing into government buildings in Washingdon D.C. the night before September 11th. When I was awakened by my mom to find out about the actual terrorist attacks, I remember telling her that I was just having a dream about that. No, there weren’t any TVs or radios on anywhere near me while I was sleeping, and yes, I was actually having the dreams before it happened. What does that mean? Do my sick fantasies actually cause real-life events? If so, I will cease and desist immediately.

»Article about the other rides closing
»News clip about the accident

Tom Cruise is making a new movie, and as much as I hate to admit, it sounds awesome. It’s about Col. Claus von Stauffenberg who was involved with a World War II era plot to kill Adolf Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime. It’s called Valkyrie, it’s directed by Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects and X-Men), and it will star Tom Cruise.

The only problem is he wants to film it in Berlin, and the Germans don’t want a Scientologist to portray someone as honorable as Col. Stauffenberg, so they aren’t letting him shoot the picture there. I don’t know how I feel about this. Part of me thinks it’s petty for a government to ban filming of a movie that tells this story, but part of me is glad that they are standing up for what they believe in.

I would be surprised if America pulled something like this, and frankly I would be disappointed. We’re all about tolerance and freedom of religion here, and apparently Germany is not. Still, I think I need to dig deeper to see why they are opposed to the movie, especially since Tom Cruise has gone insane recently. But dang does he make awesome movies.

Other interesting things I found out: Eddie Izzard is to star in this movie (last time I saw him he was a transvestite stand-up British comedian), Jenna Elfman is the daughter-in-law of Danny Elfman’s brother (how’d I miss that?), and Tom is even shorter than I thought, poor guy.

Read the whole article here.

I started seeing commercials for King’s Island about a month ago, just like every May, and I noticed that it is no longer called “Paramount’s King’s Island”. The “Paramount’s” has been removed, which prompted me to check out the website and see what happened. A couple hours of wikipedia research, a sandwich, four Beer 30s, and many tears later, I learned more about King’s Island than I ever cared to know, but some of it was interesting especially since I was practically raised by the amusement park. I’ll let you in on the most interesting things I’ve learned about King’s Island history.

One word of advice: if you haven’t been there, this post will be the most boring thing you’ve ever read. I think it’s a pretty popular place that most of us have experienced at one point in time, especially since it’s a mere 2.25 hours away. Still, I thought I’d warn you in case you think King’s Island is actually an island owned by Elvis or the King mascot from Burger King.

Here’s a little taste of my awesome trivia: Did you know the Son of Beast used to hold the record for being the only wooden coaster in the world with a loop?

You’re thinking whaaa??? what does he mean by used to? This n00b is messing with us.

Without further ado, I bring you the top five things you didn’t know about King’s Island.

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I had to title this ‘conclusion’ because I previously stated that the ‘conclusion was to follow’, but I tacked on the question mark to confuse you so you don’t know if this is really the last post about the orthodox paradox. See, that’s what you have to do - you have to use your mind.

Since I wrote parts I and II our parish has conducted two “vision” meetings. These meetings were geared towards the 18 - 40 age range and they were originally planned in order to gather the thoughts of people who otherwise might not be compelled to give their opinions - whether out of fear, laziness, or simply that they don’t think it’s right to complain whenever something doesn’t go exactly how they want it to. I fall into all three of these categories, which is why I was so grateful that the vision meetings took place.

Amazingly, the second meeting had as many attendees that I thought didn’t fit the meeting’s demographic as those who did. I’m obviously not going to name names (with the exception of my own and possibly my parish’s rector), but there were two people in particular who I thought sabotaged the meeting.

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