DisneyQ - Part Four

DisneyQ is a Disney/Star Trek crossover novel that I wrote in 2008.

If you missed Part One, and all the explanation as to why I wrote it, you can find it here
And then you can find Part Two here, and Part Three here.

Here's Part Four

Chapter Eight

“This is my good friend Chief Namee, who runs the Cannibal Cafe. The last time I talked to Namee was at his cafe. I told him that I didn't like his brother very much. He told me 'Next time, have the salad’.”

A few chuckles came from throughout the boat; the kids obviously not getting the pun.

“And now, probably the most dangerous part of our journey; the return to civilization! I certainly hope you've enjoyed our cruise. However, if your in-laws are still with you, you've missed a golden opportunity. However, bring them back later tonight for our ‘in-law’ special; halfway for half fare, no questions asked.”

“Make sure you have all personal belongings with you; cameras, purses, small children. Anything left on board will be thrown screaming to the crocodiles.”

“It's very important that you wait to get off the boat until one of our dock crew is there to assist you. Just yesterday we had a lady fall in and none of them were around to laugh at her.”

Skipper Chuck pulled the lever that would slow down the boat to a complete stop just as they approached the docking area.

“Now, as you're leaving the boat, if you find your shoes rapidly filling with water, you've gotten out on the wrong side!”

“Please be sure to tell your friends how much you enjoyed the Jungle Cruise; it helps keeps the lines down.”

He made sure the boat was locked into place as the group of guests started to exit the ride vehicle. Still he kept the one liners flowing.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please watch your step, and please don't step on small children indiscriminately. Pick the one you want and make sure you get him!”

He got a few extra laughs and claps from the guests as they waited their turn to exit.

Finally the boat was almost empty, although all that really meant was starting it all again in a few minutes time. As a Jungle Cruise skipper he would narrate the ride 4 or 5 times an hour, several hours per day. To many it would be very repetitive, but the Jungle Cruise skippers took pride in their ability to change things up and make the experience different every time for both themselves and the guests. The basic story they told would obviously always be the same because of the set pieces, but after 50 years of operation, an entire back catalogue of one liners existed from which to choose from.

Jungle Cruise was one of the opening attractions of Disney and had a long history and heritage; however, because of this it was also one of the most basic, outdated and false looking attractions as well. Compared to Disney’s own Animal Kingdom theme park just a mile or so away from here, Jungle Cruise was still in the stone age. Therefore with the ride being so out of date, it was up to the skippers to bring it to life, they made the difference between a guest laughing at the attraction and laughing because of the attraction; and the Jungle Cruise’s reputation as one of the main rides was testimony enough as to their impact.

Everything about the Jungle Cruise was fake, the so called rivers they sailed through were actually only three feet deep and contained coloured water so the guests couldn’t see the bottom. Despite the skipper pretending to steer the boat throughout the ride, the boats were actually on a track and the only things the skipper actually controlled were speed and stopping. The smells and sounds were artificial and pumped in using various hidden speakers in the trees. All the animals were fake and mostly obviously so, powered by hydraulic systems from before audio animatronics were invented. And what he found funniest of all was, that at certain points on the route, the visitors were a mere hundred yards from Main Street, just the wall of trees and a small service road separating the deepest jungle to one of the busiest places in the park; and yet the guests in neither place could ever tell. It was so fake that his name wasn’t even Chuck and he wasn’t from Texas, it was Alvin and he was from Seattle; but he had forgotten his name badge this morning and as was custom between Jungle Cruise skippers, they would go down to costuming and just pick up an old name badge and pretend to be that person for the day; so today he was Chuck from Texas.

Once fully empty, Alvin gave a salute to the two dock crew members as he moved the boat on towards the next dock where the next thirty people were waiting to board. The boat could handle a maximum of thirty nine guests at a time, but the park had to be very busy for them to push capacity that high; guests appreciated enough room to move their shoulders rather than be packed into the boats like sardines.

As he slowed the boat down to a stop again, Alvin started to think what lines he would use this time around. He had his favourites, some he would use every time around the track, but he generally liked to use a variety of lines at other places, for his own sanity if nothing else. The boat stopped, guests started to board and it was time to start the spiel.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please slide all the way forward now. That's the only way we have of keeping the cushions clean!”

A few initial laughs, always a good sign.

“How many of you are on the Jungle Cruise for the first time? Good! So am I.”

“Come all the way to the front, up by me. There's no truth to the rumour that you get a longer ride in back.”

“Let's get one thing straight, if we start to sink, the captain will be going down with the boat. I'd like you to meet your new captain,” Alvin picked on the nearest guy to him, he was wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and a Yankees baseball cap, “What did you say your name was?”

“Mike.” Mike Ridgway replied.

“Your new captain Mike everybody”

The guests that were already seated and situated gave the guest named Mike a small applause.

“Look! Little kids! I love kids! A little mustard, a little barbecue sauce. Oh I'm just kidding, I don't like mustard all that much.”

Everyone was in, and Alvin could see the boat behind them was almost ready to move forward having unloaded so he got their boat moving forward at a slow chugging along pace.

“Hello and welcome to the world famous Jungle Cruise. My name is Skipper Chuck and I'll be your skipper, guide, captain, cruise director and dance instructor for the next five exciting days and six romantic nights.

“Now, let's everyone turn around and wave good-bye to those people on the dock we've left behind. Come on folks; pretend like you're having a good time.

The guests were doing as he asked, he had them, and for the next nine minutes they were his audience.

***************************

The Robert’s family had made it into the park. It had taken a little while to get there, the tram to the Ticket and Transportation Center had been reasonably fast because it didn’t have to stop at any of the other car parks, but they had had to wait a little while to board the monorail which itself took a little while because it stopped and waited at the Polynesian resort. But they were here now and as they walked onto Main Street all the stress of the car journey and subsequent Pony scare slipped away.

As a family they tried to visit at least the parks twice a year, while dating Jennifer and Graham would drive down all the time for weekend getaways and even got married at Disney World in the wedding pavilion. It had been expensive but worth it, their wedding pictures in front of Cinderella’s Castle had come out beautifully; and while dancing at the wedding had been fun, the entire wedding party taking up an entire mine train on Thunder Mountain in their wedding attire had just been hysterical. Since Samantha had been born the visits had became more infrequent, the logistics of visiting the parks with a toddler were just so different to the carefree way a couple of twenty-somethings could do it. But while there were rides the couple could no longer do together, as one of them would have to sit with Samantha, other aspects of the parks were so much more enjoyable now when done with a child.

It was one of those things that the family decided to do first. Graham had been right in the parking lot, the park would be open all day today and tomorrow, and missing out on one ride without a line wasn’t really the end of the world; especially as tomorrow would be different with them staying so close to the park. So instead of going straight for a ride, they headed down to Mickey’s Toowntown Fair, a small section of the park specifically designed for the younger guests. There was Goofy’s Barnstormer, a rollercoaster for children, Donald’s Boat, a water squirting play area, Mickey and Minnie’s houses and most importantly of all the Judges Tent. At the end of the Judges Tent walk through you got to meet and get your photo with the main Judge, Mickey Mouse; what better way could there be to start the holiday than with the icon himself.

They waited in the very short line at the end of the walkthrough for their turn to go in. Samantha was oblivious as to what would be coming next, it being six months since her last visit she had completely forgotten; she also was far too young to question how comes it was that people were taken into different doors all to meet the same person. So when they were finally led into a room, Samantha’s eyes grew wide when in front of her stood Mickey Mouse. He went down onto one knee and opened his arms out wide and Samantha wasted no time running into them and embracing the mouse in a huge lingering hug; Pony dropped in the process which Jennifer wasted no time in picking up in case it was left behind.

“Mickey Mouse” hadn’t been Samantha’s first words, but they came soon after; she would spend half the day at home watching and singing along to the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse shows on Playhouse Disney. Seeing Samantha hug Mickey the way she did brought a tear of joy to Jennifer’s eyes; Disney was so important to her, she loved seeing that passion live in her daughters heart as well.

Once Mickey and Samantha had unlocked from each other, the whole family got in on the act; Jennifer getting a hug and Graham a handshake and pat on the back. Out came the new autograph book, “you have to have Mickey on the front page,” Jennifer insisted, and next came a few family photos with both their own camera and the Disney Photo Pass system that had become so effective over the last few years.

They left the tent with a smile on their faces. Jennifer had often told friends who questioned their love of Disney that meeting Mickey forced you to become a child again no matter how old you were or how grown up your real life problems were. She felt that way as she walked out of the tent, she had just hugged Mickey Mouse; life was good.

Having gotten the holiday kicked off, they decided Fantasyland would be where they would spend the rest of the morning; most of Jennifer’s favourite rides from childhood were there and it was also the land where Samantha had the most fun; Graham was happy as long as his two girls were both content. A quick show of hands meant they would ride Dumbo first and then Peter Pan.


Chapter Nine

“I need to sit down now,” Q said as she held her own forehead.

The Tea Cups had not been such a good idea. They weren’t anywhere near as mundane as Small World had been, instead they were the opposite; and the spinning had been to much for Q. Of course it probably didn’t help that q had absolutely loved the thrill of the ride and spun the middle disc which in turn spun their ride vehicle even more than the floor movement already would have.

“Who knew that without your powers you would suffer from motion sickness in this way my dear.” Q said, trying to sound as sympathetic as he could.

“Who knew?” she replied, “WHO KNEW?!” she repeated although the second time far louder and certainly with more anger; “Why would we need to know? Why would I ever be without my powers for it to become an issue?”

Q knew he was going to get it now. She was right, the only reason she was without her powers was because of him, the continuum would never strip her as a punishment like they had him because she never rocked the boat in the same way, even when she was supporting him. Despite the tone of her voice, Q was feeling very weak and with Q and q supporting her on either side, the three entered a nearby restaurant so they could sit down. q left the two of them to get Q some water, Q thought this would be a good time to think.

It occurred to Q that the main problem with this place was it’s simplicity. Looking at the map all these attractions sounded good but all they were going to be were basic mechanical shows and they were never going to impress. The others would be rides designed to give the human body a thorough shaking or force the feeling or fear through extremes of movement. “This just isn’t going to work;” Q thought to himself.

But then out of nowhere he saw it and got an idea. On the wall there was a little statue of a small boy made out of wood; although he was fake he had been carved to appear real to the best of his makers ability. It made Q think of Data and his constant desire to be more human; more real. In actuality, being human would have been a huge step down for him, but it was what he was designed to be and so that was what he wanted to achieve.

“What if these rides weren’t full of crappy imitations and representations, what if they were more real; I could easily explain to Q and q that the first ride was much older than the others, they would think the new rides are just that much better not knowing it had anything to do with me.”

A smile crept across Q’s face as his idea grew in his mind and that it could both save the vacation and if it worked, save himself from Q later on. With a quick flash of light it was so; the Magic Kingdom was now more realistic.

...........To Be Continued

GoogleWhack!!

“Hello.”

“Some people are more comfortable with that these days.”

For those who don’t know, that is the opening two lines and picture gag (although I have updated the phone screen) of "Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure"; probably the most played DVD that I own. I decided this week to write a DVD/Book review, but rather than write about something new and in the public eye, instead do it on something special and that I hope to introduce to people who have missed out on it so far.

It was late 2004 and Tara and I were in the entertainment isle of Tesco and saw this DVD sitting in the new releases section. For some reason I knew the name Dave Gorman, and I knew he had something to do with a search for other people also named Dave Gorman. I don’t think I had see any of the TV shows concerning the quest (The Dave Gorman Collection), nor do I think I saw his appearance on the Big Breakfast or other shows; but this piece of knowledge had entered my brain at some time somehow. So thinking that this DVD was about that, I picked it up. I was wrong, while the topic does come up in the show; this is nothing to do with either The Dave Gorman Collection (TV) or Are You Dave Gorman (book).

However, while wrong, I was far from disappointed. We watched the DVD alone, we watched it with friends and family, we gave it as gifts, we took it to America to show family over there, we took it on holidays; Googlewhack Adventure became and still is the default DVD to put on in bed when there is nothing on TV. It’s like when you go to the same restaurant and order the same dish every time; you know you will thoroughly enjoy it and it makes you happy no matter how many times you have it; we put this on knowing we will be entertained despite knowing it near word for word.

You can probably guess by now, that I like (love) this DVD and have also read the book several times too; so you won’t be hearing a lot of negatives in this “review”. There are two USPs which separate a lot of Dave Gorman’s shows and books from other comedians work. Firstly they often involve a true story of adventure or life (which you just hope are true; and I believe them to be) and thus are a rollercoaster of ups and downs, fun and sometimes sadness; you feel invested in the story as much as enjoy the laughs and presentation of it. Secondly, Dave does like a PowerPoint presentation (don’t we all?) and uses it to help tell the story with pictures, evidence, graphs and visual gags.

This is an ugly, little piece of shit. It sits on my desk at work.

As for Googlewhack Adventure itself, the premise of the story is thusly; and I am going to try and do this without giving away too much of the story or any of the points of hilarity. While working on a project, Dave is emailed declaring him to be “a Googlewhack”. Not knowing what a Googlewhack is, Dave finds out and as he says himself “if you’re sitting at a computer when you find out what a Googlewhack is, and you don’t try and find one for yourself; well, you’re not bloody human”; which is completely true because within days of watching this DVD, I had found and registered several.

For those reading this who do not know what a Googlewhack is; I shall explain. Go to Google (I’m going to presume everyone knows what that is) and put in two words. Most likely you are going to get pages and pages of results for your two words; these are all the pages that contain both of them. However, if your two words (conforming to the rules) bring back one result only, then that is a Googlewhack.

So back to the premise. Dave finds his Googlewhack, and just like he was told via email, he lets the owner of that website (Marcus) know and a friendship ensues including a visit to Dave’s flat where Marcus finds a Googlewhack of his own. This is where the story takes the major turn, because the owner of Marcus’ Googlewhack turns out, against all odds, to be someone that Dave knows (also named David). On informing David of this fact, David’s response is to declare himself No.2 on a chain of Googlewhacks and bets Dave he can’t meet 10 in a row with each link in the chain only able to find him 2 more link possibilities before his 32nd birthday.

While he resists at first, the Adventure does eventually begins and Dave ends up on a worldwide adventure to find his chain of 10 and win the bet.

I’m not going to give any more of the story than that; I do not want to ruin any of it. In what I have written already, I have been very careful so as not to give away several of the funniest moments of the show. There are twists and turns, highs and lows, hilarity and despair; all told amazingly by Dave who has an amazing stage presence  and theatricalness to his delivery. But while the quest for Googlewhacks is the driver of the story, it is the people Dave meets along the way that make this such an amazing story. Real people are often “different” and meeting random people around the world leads Dave into situations involving alcohol, religion, sexuality, body art, possible beastiality, mental breakdown, Disney fans and running the border for coke (you need to read the book for that last one alone).

I do, however, have one niggling thought about something that happens in the story which I figured I would put out there to see if anyone else has thought this too. Near the end of the show, Dave challenges the audience that the story is real and has not been made up; and I believe him. However, as already explained, the pivotal point of the story is when Marcus finds his Googlewhack and it turns out to be David, whom Dave already knows. This is labelled in the show as being “The Most Amazing Coincidence EVER!!”, but is it? A little earlier in the show, Marcus expresses his doubts in the chances of finding a Googlewhack to which Dave answered that “maybe every page contains a Googlewhack, you don’t know until you look”; and I wonder if this is what Marcus did, reverse whacked. My theory is that Dave had David’s website bookmarked and that Marcus just went through saved pages looking for two unrelated complex words and then tried them out to see if they were indeed a whack until he found one in “Unconstructive Superegos”. Thus rather than being a one in three billion chance taking another one in three billion chance and landing in the realm of the known, statistically unlikely; it became not only likely, but almost a prerequisite as long as Dave recognised the pages he had bookmarked; and thus absolutely no coincidence at all. As I said, this is just a theory, it may have indeed been the most amazing coincidence EVER!, but this just seems a little more likely. Do I care if that Googlewhack was indeed a reverse whacked? Not in the slightest.

Honestly, if you haven’t seen this, you should; you are missing out on a couple of hours of pure entertainment. I give it the full 11 thumbs up!!

For those who have seen and enjoyed the DVD, I really recommend that you read the book as well; it has so much more story in it, especially fleshing out the middle of the adventure which is rather glossed over in the live show.

I would also recommend you check out the rest of Dave’s work starting back at “The Dave Gorman Collection” DVD and “Are You Dave Gorman” the book. Again, very funny and both very different from each other despite being about the same adventure of trying to find 54 Dave Gormans (one for every card in a deck….including the jokers). The reason for this is that while the DVD is a one man show with vide clips, it was a two man adventure and the book is written from both Dave and Danny Wallace’s viewpoints, thus adding an extra layer. This is also a good launch point if you want to read Danny’s other adventure books such as Join Me, Yes Man and Friends Like These.

Dave’s work after Googlewhack includes “America Unchained” which is again either a book or DVD; although in this case the DVD is a documentary journey rather than a stand up, where Dave tries to go Coast to Coast USA without giving any money to “Corporate” America. And more recently “Dave Gorman Vs The World” which is a really fun read as Dave asks his Twitter followers if anyone wants a game of anything. Dave also has a slightly more normal stand up show available on DVD called "Stand Up" and is currently touring his PowerPoint Presentation which is the most I have laughed in a long time (being Jewish makes a certain part of it even funnier). For the completists out there, you will need to be a little more resourceful to get your hands on a the TV show “Dave Gorman’s Important Astrology Experiment” as they still haven’t released it on DVD.

And of course, there is the Dave Gorman Absolute Radio Show and Podcast which I wrote about a few weeks ago on my podcast blog. This show is not to be missed.

You can check out everything Dave Gorman has done and get more info at davegorman.com

So with that all said, it’s time to shave this off and return to my childish ways.

Speak Soon :)

DisneyQ - Part Three

DisneyQ is a Disney/Star Trek crossover novel that I wrote in 2008.

If you missed Part One, and all the explanation as to why I wrote it, you can find it here
And then you can find Part Two here.

But for those of you who are up to date, here's Part Three

Chapter Six

“Shut up!” Casey shrieked at her best friend Tiffani who had just asked her if she had a thing for Corey from their psychology class; both girls giggled.

"I'm just repeating what Laura has been telling everyone;" Tiffani replied, "Besides, he is cute in a geeky kinda way."

"Maybe, but you know I'm more interested in someone on the football team." Casey took her mobile phone from her pocket and started frantically pressing keys.

"What are you doing?" Tiffani giggled.

"I'm texting Laura; telling her to stop spreading rumours; and send." Casey said as she pressed the last digit; however, then she started typing again.
 
"Now what are you doing?"

"Texting everyone in my phonebook that Laura slept with Tom Jenkins"

"From math class? Ewww!"

Casey couldn't help but laugh both at what she had done and Tiffani's reaction; both girls stood still as they enjoyed the moment.

For Casey and Tiffani, Disney World was their playground. They both lived in Celebration, an experimental town founded by Disney, where many of the parks employees and management lived; both girls’ parents came under the latter. Living practically on Disney property; having an annual pass to the parks was as normal to them as a video rental membership and they, and their friends, would pop in out at of the parks after school or at weekends as they pleased.

Finally Tiffani broke the laughter; "So what do ya want to do? We've got an hour till we've gotta be at Space Mountain to meet the others."

"I don't mind;" Casey replied, "just not Carousel of Progress, I don't need a nap."

"Stitch?"

"Yeah, fine; I haven't done Stitch in a couple of weeks." The girls took a right turn to cross the walkway that led to the controversial front avenue of Tomorrowland where both Stitch's Great Escape and Monsters Inc Laugh Floor are situated.

"I miss Alien Encounter," Tiffani said as the girls walked under the huge Stitch sign into the building that used to house the scary attraction, "I know it's essentially the same thing but it was better before."

"We all know that Tiff; you mention it like every time we walk past here."

"It could be worse;" Tiffani said in defence, "my Mom still goes on about when it was Mission to Mars, Monsters Inc was Timekeeper and Buzz was Dreamflight."

"My Dad's the same, he can't even look at Pooh's Playful Spot or Adventures without mentioning 20,000 Leagues and Mr Toad."

Both girls laughed at their parents stuck in the past attitude to attraction replacement. To Disney fans there would always be very different attitudes on how the park should be grown. All fans want new attractions, and sometimes the success of a movie will demand a new attraction, but with the parks borders being quite specific, a new attraction often means the demise or major change of an old one; and every old attraction is somebody’s favourite from when they were kids. Some attractions had planned and announced closures like Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, which had been running for 27 years. The announced closing sparked national campaigns to “Save Mr Toad” and in it’s final days hundreds of fans protested outside the ride, begging for it to be spared; some even going as far as to exit the ride vehicle and hide inside the attraction, an act that became known as a “Toad In”. Other rides just closed overnight with no warning like 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, which was temporarily closed for maintenance, but never reopened. It was a debate that would always run and on which people would often sit on different sides of the fence depending on what attraction would be going away and what attraction it would be making room for.

"So," Tiffani asked with a slightly shy bitten lip; "if you don't want Corey, can I have him?"

Casey rolled her eyes; "he's all yours."     

***************************

Mike Ridgway stepped off the boat, a wide grin on his face. Having been turned away from the Haunted Mansion, Mike had decided to ride the new and improved Pirates of the Caribbean attraction; and was able to make the quick walk from Liberty Square down to Adventureland before the line hadn’t gotten too long.

With the attraction having been reopened for over a year now, much of the buzz over its improvements had died down but to Mike it had been a wonderful first time seeing them. The Davey Jones ghost and Barbossa and Sparrow animatronics were all excellent and the enhanced sound system made the whole experience so much more encapsulating than it had before. Inwardly Mike wondered if there would be any way to get to Disneyland on the west coast any time soon; however good this new version of Pirates was, the Disneyland version would be so much better.

He took a few pictures of the loading and unloading area before making his way through the caverns to the ride exit where a group of people were watching the new Pirate Tutorial show where Captain Jack Sparrow and a pirate stooge would lead the crowds through various pirate activities and of course a rousing rendition of Yo Ho, Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me). Mike didn’t want to stray too far from the west side of the park so decided to watch the show, take a few pictures to post in his trip report, maybe ride the Jungle Cruise next as it was situated right besides Pirates before heading back to the Haunted Mansion and his date with the new bride.

***************************

Jonathan was in full flow. It was his first show of the day and the first part of it was going through a scripted routine called the Pirate Tutorial. Jonathan really enjoyed this part, it wasn’t like being in a character costume show where the voices were pre-recorded and played through the speakers while the actor made the motions and danced; this was completely live and allowed the actors to mix things up a little depending on their audience and stray from the script to get a few extra laughs. The two of them had been doing the show together for about four months now and they were able to bounce of each other a lot during the shows confident in each others ability to go with the flow; he and Ray were quite a team. Jonathan’s character of Jack Sparrow meant that he had to come across with a drunken flamboyance whereas Ray’s generic pirate named Mac was much straighter in his portrayal; this allowed for them to play the classic straight man angle in their banter.

The first show of the day was always the quiet one, most guests were getting in as many of their favourite attractions as possible while the park was not quite so full; but he had a decent audience and the fewer of them would mean he could connect with them more. Jonathan loved to be able to make guests walk away from the show thinking they got a special experience, that they themselves were special; it didn’t really matter that he would do the same thing for a dozen people each day, they didn’t know that. After the show portion of the appearance, he would sign autographs and pose for photos, and so often he would see those he had played to during the show at the front of the crowd and they would comment on how great the experience had been. To Jonathan this was the most pleasing part of his job, better than any applause he would receive.

This was one of his favourite parts of the show, he would pick certain members of the audience, usually children, and show them how to sword fight using small wooden sword props. They would then battle Mac while he cheered them on and told them which body parts to be aiming for; everyone got a laugh out of it and Jonathan could really lay on the flamboyance waving his arms around with the sword while giving commentary to the audience.

Following this they would lead the crowd in a sing-a-long version of Yo Ho, he and Ray taking a side of the audience each and seeing who’s newly initiated pirates could scream it loudest; and then it would be time for autographs and photos. They would be doing the show seven times today, once an hour, so they would only be getting twenty minutes rest in between shows for a quick snack, a drink and to reapply any make up that had smudged off in the heat. It was going to be an exhausting weekend but it would be a lot of fun.

Chapter Seven

Q’s opinion of humans pre World War III was dropping rapidly. While Q had berated Picard on their first meeting about how humans were savage creatures who destroyed themselves, the Eugenics War and WWIII pushed mankind forward massively on a technological basis. While the technologies had originally been researched and developed with warfare in mind, specifically to cause maximum damage, after the nuclear war had finished and the world started to rebuild it only took a little imagination for a crazy scientist to convert the technologies and create the first shuttle able to manage warp speed; and the rest was history.

But with the war starting in 19 years, the technology Q had just witnessed was a far cry from that, let alone where it would be in the half a century from now when the war ended.

Despite the lack of reaction to Q’s quip, the three Q had made their way to the attraction called “It’s A Small World” where they were met with a horde of people. The building they entered was adorned with large cut out shapes to create a colourful city skyline on the back wall. Because of the way it was laid out, Q could see all the people lined up behind one another following a snake formation that went back and forth as it worked it’s way down from the level at which they entered to the bottom where boat like vehicles were emerging from a hole in the wall, stopping to offload their passengers, moving forward, being filled with more passengers from the front of the line and then disappearing through a hole on the opposite end of the wall.

“Apparently we stand behind these people and make out way down to those boats;” Q said to Q and q.

“Gee, that sounds like a lot of fun;” Q replied with a sarcastic voice, “is this where the excitement begins?”

Q didn’t know how to answer that without risking further future revenge from Q so he stayed quiet. Thankfully for him though, q chose that moment to interject himself into the conversation.

“Well there are a lot of people here;” he said, “they must know what this is and be wanting to experience it, it must be good.”

And so they waited.

For almost an hour.

During the wait, Q, Q and q discussed the way humans would waste so much of their spare time waiting like this. For a Q, the hour, while boring, was nothing but a mere spec in time; and for a human an hour wasn’t very long either, but when you added all those hours together the total percentage of their short mortal lives the humans wasted like this was quite considerate. The three surmised that the experience must be pretty special in order to be worth the sacrifice of time in this manner.

Q later kicked himself for not realising then that the number of humans in attendance or their willingness to stand in line wasting their lives should not have been used as a guide for the quality of the experience for which they were waiting.

It hadn’t been an acknowledgement of the patheticness of mankind and their tiny planet as Q had surmised, it was a instead a showing of global unity and love; a joke if ever there were one. And the way it had been done, it were enough to make Q sick; if Q could get sick that was. Little mechanical dolls singing, dancing and spinning while dressed up in front of backgrounds supposed to represent the countries of the world, and this terribly annoying song that was supposedly being sung over and over and over; “no wonder this place was levelled during the war” Q thought. And to make matters worse, now it was over and the three of them were outside again, Q wouldn’t stop singing the wretched song.

“Its a small world after all, its a small world after all, its a small world after all, its a small, small, world. It's a world of laughter, a world of tears, its a world of hopes…”

Q had to end this. He didn’t know for sure whether Q had lost her mind or was just singing the song to annoy him, he suspected the latter, but it had to come to and end. Q’s first instinct was to just shut her up through use of power, but that would tip her off and who only knew the trouble he would be in then. So instead he decided to go the persuasive route; “Q darling,” he began in his smoothest voice, “as much as I love to hear your beautiful voice, as I am sure everyone else here does too, would you mind singing something a little less asinine?”

Q cut off her singing and gave Q a look that confirmed his thoughts that she was doing it on purpose to annoy him. “Great”, he thought, “she’s going to pull that one out whenever she wants to annoy me.”

q, however, didn’t seem anywhere near as put off as Q and was looking at the map. “Maybe I let him spend too long with Kathy,” Q thought, “Paris and Kim and rubbed off on him a little too much.

“So what do we want to do next?” q said in what sounded like genuine interest.

“I don’t care but I’m not doing one of those line things again any time soon, Q dragged us here to escape boredom not experience it as part of a crowd.” Q answered, with total indifference.

“Well, that ride hasn’t got a line,” q said pointing to a canopy covered area not far from their current location; “apparently they are the Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups.”

“Excellent idea my boy!” Q exclaimed pretending to be thrilled and trying to get away with the situation he had put them in, “lead on.”

...........To Be Continued

iTunes/iPhone Song Shuffle

I thought I would do something for fun rather than write another 3,000 word essay.

I've seen a lot of people play a little game called iPod shuffle before where they have to admit the first 10 songs their iPod (or similar music listening device) play when on random shuffle mode and list them to show how bad their taste in music is. I thought I would take the game a little further and make a bit of an experiment of it; because although I have around 650 songs on my iPhone, I have over 8,000 songs in my iTunes library; thus offering the chance of a much wider (or bizarre) choice of music.

Over Xmas I spent quite a lot of time organising my iTunes library, filling it with music, sorting everything in folders, by artists and groupings etc etc. I had acquired a lot of music during my DJing days; but so much of it was a mess, it needed a proper organising.

So, in theory, taking the first 30 songs randomly played by shuffle in both libraries should in the iTunes library show a bias towards sheer number of songs by a certain artist that I have, and in the iPhone library actually reflect what I tend to listen to. Well, that's the theory anyway.

So, let's see what happenned.

iTunes Library - 8063 Songs

	Song	Album	Artist
1	Blitzkrieg	Garage Inc	Metallica
2	Sleeping In My Car	Crash! Boom! Bang!	Roxette
3	Dancing In The Street	Diver Down	Van Halen
4	When It's Love	OU812	Van Halen
5	Looking for Romance	Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic	Disney Studio Chorus
6	Related	Buckcherry	Buckcherry
7	Give Me Novacaine	American Idiot	Green Day
8	Let it Rock	Slippery When Wet	Bon Jovi
9	Paint it Black	Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock	Rolling Stones
10	Ray - Mama Odie (Intrumental)	The Princess & The Frog	Randy Newman
11	Rock And Roll Hoochie Koo	Guitar Hero 2: Soundtrack	Rick Derringer
12	Exiter	Box Set	Kiss
13	Love Hungry Man	Highway to Hell	AC/DC
14	Are We Dancing	Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic	Lesley Ann Warren and John Davidson
15	Your House	Jagged Little Pill (Acoustic)	Alanis Morissette
16	Robert Says Goodbye (Instrumental)	Enchanted	Alan Menken
17	Heed our Warning	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Score)	Steve Jablonsky
18	Learn to Fly	There is Nothing Left to Lose	Foo Fighters
19	Perry Mason Theme	Made in America	Blues Brothers
20	Calling Dr Love	The Very Best of Kiss	Kiss
21	Time (2003 Promo)	Avenue Q	UK Cast of Avenue Q
22	Bibbidi - Bobbidi - Boo	Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic	Verna Felton
23	Helicopter	Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock	Bloc Party
24	There's Gonna Be Some Rockin'	Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap	AC/DC
25	Blackbird	Glee: The Warblers	Glee Cast
26	Two Sides of the Coin	Unmasked	Kiss
27	Not a Dry Eye in the House	Welcome to the Neibourhood	Meat Loaf
28	Life is a Highway	Cars Soundtrack	Rascal Flats
29	Knockin on Heaven's Door	Use Your Illusion 2	Guns N' Roses
30	Green Hell	New Skulls for the Old Ceremony	Metallica

So what can I say about the first 30 songs as chosen by iTunes?

Well, out of the 30, I only know 12 of the songs and only 2 or 3 of the songs have ever made it out of the library and onto an iPod or iPhone. So I certainly wouldn't say that this selection is representative of my music choices. As I theorised before, this list mostly comes down to which band's discogaphies are the largest (even if I don't listen to them) and both Kiss and AC/DC rleased a lot of albums. 5 songs (17%) being Disney is pretty representative of my library, but I am surprised there is absolutely nothing by my favourite band Counting Crows or by Cirque Du Soleil; both of which have a decent presence in my library.

Overall, this wouldn't be a song list that I would want to sit and listen to; even though it's straight from my own library. But this does not suprise me hugely as I know there is a lot of music in my library that I only have because of my DJing days, from Tara's music choices, or because I liked selected tracks either by an artist or on a particular album and thus inherited loads that I don't even know along with them. While obvioulsy mathematically possible, the odds were against 30 songs I like being chosen out of over 8,000.

But that shouldn't be the case with the 30 songs randomly played by my iPhone because I've already condensed the 8,000 down to the 656 songs that I have chosen to be on there. Now admittedly, because I am lazy, music selection often ends up on my iPhone by Album or Artist and not on song by song basis; so there are songs on there which I don't like that much and have just been grouped in because they are on albums that generally I really do like.

But overall speaking, a shuffle of 30 songs here should give a pretty good representation of my music tastes.

iPhone Library - 656 Songs

	Song	Album	Artist
1	Arrival	Tron: Legacy	Daft Punk
2	Deuce	Greatest Hits	Kiss
3	Rain King	Films About Ghosts	Counting Crows
4	Hero of the Day	Load	Metallica
5	Never Before, Never Again	Muppet Movie	Miss Piggy
6	Save A Prayer	Keep the Faith	Bon Jovi
7	Sunday Morning Coming Down	Soul's Core	Shawn Mullins
8	You're Crazy	Appetite for Destruction	Guns N' Roses
9	Bad Medicine	Crossroad	Bon Jovi
10	Blame it on the Love of Rock & Roll	Keep the Faith	Bon Jovi
11	Don't Cry	Use Your Illusion 1	Guns N' Roses
12	My Nemesis	Phinease & Ferb-ulous: The Ultimate Album	Danny Jacob
13	End It On This	Tragic Kingdom	No Doubt
14	When I See An Elephant Fly	The Best Disney Album In The World...Ever!	Cliff Edwards and the Hall Johnson Choir
15	Do You Love Me	Greatest Hits	Kiss
16	Do You Love Me	The Blues Brothers Complete	Blues Brothers
17	This Ain't A Love Song	These Days	Bon Jovi
18	Bad Obsession	Use Your Illusion 1	Guns N' Roses
19	Just A Girl	Tragic Kingdom	No Doubt
20	Chains On Me	Phinease & Ferb-ulous: The Ultimate Album	Dan Povenmire
21	Better	Chinese Democracy	Guns N' Roses
22	Insignificant	Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings	Counting Crows
23	Mary	Fumbling Towards Ecstacy	Sarah McLachlan
24	Dude (Looks Like a Lady)	Big Ones	Aerosmith
25	Circle	Fumbling Towards Ecstacy	Sarah McLachlan
26	Jack and Sally Montage	The Nightmare Before Christmas Soundtrack	Danny Elfman
27	There's A Platypus Controlling Me	Phineas & Ferb Across the 2nd Dimension	Dr Doofenschmirtz
28	Armory	Tron: Legacy	Daft Punk
29	I Had A Dream	The Soul Sessions	Joss Stone
30	I'm Lindana And I Wanna Have Fun	Phinease & Ferb-ulous: The Ultimate Album	Lindana

That wasn't the selection I was expecting. 

Firstly, out of 656 songs, it choses two songs named "Do You Love Me" by different artists back to back; how is that statistically likely??

4 songs by Bon Jovi? I've done the math and only 6% of my iPhone library is Bon Jovi, yet shuffle has brought them back 13% of the timeand its exacly the same stats for Phineas and Ferb. The Tron Legacy soundtrack, Sarah McLachlan and No Doubt were obvioulsy a popular choice for shuffle as while only representing 3% or less of the library there were brought back 7% of the time; and Kiss again managed to get a good presence even though they represent very little of the library.

Guns N' Roses and Counting Crows both came up a few times and at least this is a little representative of the library as they are two largest constituents; but Aerosmith and Blues Brothers were very misrepresented while Imelda May didn't get chosen once despite being 4% of the library.

So was this a better respresentation of my music choices? Well, I would happily listen to this playlist; although I would probably be tempted to reach for the skip song button on 7 of the songs. Overall, I would say the artists and albums represent my choices, but that's no surprise because I did choose them. In almost all cases these are not the songs from said artist or album that I would have chosen to listen to, nor are the quantities in balance; which probably explains why I do reach for the skip button so often.

Therefore, In conclusion; Shuffle Sucks!!

Speak Soon :)

DisneyQ - Part Two

DisneyQ is a Disney/Star Trek crossover novel that I wrote in 2008.

If you missed Part One, and all the explanation as to why I wrote it, you can find it here

Here's Part Two

Chapter Four

"Hurry up, we're late!" Jennifer Roberts exclaimed as her husband, Graham, got the stroller out the trunk.

"Calm down Jenny," he replied, "the park doesn't close until 10 tonight; that's 11 hours from now."

"But now we're not going to beat any of the lines;"

"Mommy?"

"We’re going to have to wait for everything."

"Mommy?!" 

"And we've had to park in Dopey, DOPEY, the tram ride alone will take ten minutes, and that’s before the monorail ride to the main gates."

"MOMMY?!?!?"

''WHAT Samantha?" Jennifer retorted much louder and sterner than she had meant to. Samantha stepped backwards, her eyes filling with tears just waiting to start flowing. "Oh honey I'm sorry, Mummy and Daddy are just trying to get everything sorted so we can go have some fun. What did you want?"

"I can't find Pony and I need her" Samantha sniffled; the explanation being enough to set off the tears.

"Oh dear God no." Jennifer thought to herself. Samantha had been given the pink plush My Little Pony for her second birthday and even now, a year later, Pony went everywhere with her. A lack of Pony would mean either hoping something in the shops here would appease her for the weekend, a tactic with mixed levels of success in the past, or a three hour round trip home and back to pick it up; and given that road works had caused them to be late already, three hours would be if they were lucky. This was not a good start to the weekend. “She must have had him when she got in the car,” she thought as she started to look around the back seat of the car where Samantha had been sitting. “She’s forgotten Pony,” Jennifer called out to Graham who had just closed the trunk and missed their daughter’s distress.

“I’ve got it;” Graham called back, as he emerged from around the back of the car with the stroller and bags.

“Thank god;” Jennifer muttered as she clambered back out of the back of the car, backside first.

Seeing the tears on Samantha’s face, Graham realised what he had missed; “it’s ok Sammy,” he reached into the stroller and offered Pony to her, “you dropped Pony when you were asleep in the car so I put her in your stroller for you.”

Samantha’s eyes lit up and as she saw her beloved toy in her daddy’s hand. She gratefully accepted it from him and gave it a big hug. Jennifer and Graham exchanged a relived glance at each other; both knew they were thinking the same thing; “what are we going to do if she ever does lose it.”

 “Here comes a tram,” Jennifer said as her eyes caught it coming, “come on, Mickey is waiting.”

***************************

Having worked at the park for nearly six yeas, Jonathan Rose considered himself a veteran cast member. For almost all that time Jonathan had been a character portrayer; one of the most important and secretive roles in the park. Cast member behaviour was something the Disney company took very seriously and character portrayers had to be totally in character from the second they were visible until they were completely out of sight; keeping kayfabe was paramount. It was a difficult job; the costumes could be very heavy and were so hot inside, visibility ranged but would be generally poor, you had to make each person feel special but at the same time get through as many as possible, hold books and sign autographs while wearing huge mittens or having just three fingers, control the crowd, reward those who waited patiently while making those who push in wait, be careful not to trip over or hit any children with a limb while being pulled about like a rag doll; all while staying in character and without talking.

Over the years he had seen many people not be able to handle the pressure, dream job turned nightmare; but Jonathan had thrived on it. All the hardships of the job melted away every time he saw a child or family smile or laugh. And he had loved to be able to play up all the different personalities, the playfulness of Pluto and Tigger, the tenderness of Mickey or Pooh; he even loved playing the villains, they weren't as mobbed and he could really interact with the guests whether it be by showing disgust at being asked to sign an autograph or by stealing their hats. 
   
A year ago Jonathan's role had taken a twist. The Pirates of the Caribbean film had been a major success and Disney wanted to have Jack Sparrow in the park. They made slight alterations to the attractions adding Captain Barbossa and changing the focus of the town pillaging to the search for Captain Jack; who would make appearances hiding and outsmarting his would be captors. But they also wanted Captain Jack as a walk around face character; Jonathan had auditioned and gotten the part.

Essentially it was the same job with the same objectives; he did miss the variety of portraying a different role each day, but his body had never been so grateful. After only a week of wearing normal clothes, rather than a huge suit and head piece, Jonathan could feel the difference; he had grown so accustomed to the pain that he didn't feel it until it wasn't there. And of course there was the one major difference between a face and non-face character; he could talk. At first it had been quite hard getting used to the perk, he would find himself motioning and gesturing to guests the way he would have always had to before remembering he could use his voice, but once he mastered how to use both techniques together his performances had begun to shine; he just had to master the dialect Johnny Depp had given the character in the movies, best described as a drunken campness.

He still had an hour before he was scheduled to make his first appearance of the day; Jonathan liked to arrive early in order to get into character while applying his extravagant make up. Most male face characters were princes so just needed to look handsome, some even jibed Jonathan for the extra work his role needed; "who cares," he would think to himself, "they were just an accessory to their respective princess; most guests couldn't even name them. I on the other hand am a main attraction."

***************************

Cameron Fisher was a Hidden Mickey hunter; he wanted to be amongst the most famous for it too. "If Barrett can have a book out why can't I?" he would often say to friends who questioned his sanity.

Living in California he had not been to Disney World in a long time; he didn't even really like it here. Like many Disneyland enthusiasts, Cameron considered the East coast park to be nothing more than a tourist trap; inferior in every way to the original. It didn't matter that Disney World had been the first park to have Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin or Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. It didn't matter that Disney World had the water parks, Epcot, MGM and Animal Kingdom while Disneyland's second park was the biggest failure of all Disney parks. If didn't even matter to Cameron that the "Florida Project" was Walt's greatest dream. It was inferior and he would argue that to anyone willing. These arguments would usually end up with Cameron bringing up that Disneyland was Walt's park; Walt walked it, designed it, rode the attractions, made it perfect. The pro-Disneyland enthusiasts loved being able to play this card; while the “Florida Project”, more specifically EPCOT, was Walt’s greatest dream, he had passed away five years before the Magic Kingdom opened, sixteen years before EPCOT had opened, before construction on the property even got underway. Disneyland fans always claimed that you could feel Walt when walking around Disneyland, Disney World fans never had a comeback of equal stature to counter with.

But his personal thoughts on the parks didn’t matter, he was here to hunt Hidden Mickeys and he would need to collect his research if he were to launch his planned book and website; this was, after all, the birth place of Hidden Mickeys, as much as Cameron hated to admit it.

In his head he already had his first chapter written. He would start by giving a brief description of how Hidden Mickeys had originated, how imagineers, who had been banned from bringing Mickey into the EPCOT plans as a character, decided to sneak little images of him into the artistic designs. After all, who would notice that in one scene of Spaceship Earth there’s a tiny ink blot on a piece of paper on a desk in the shape of Mickey head and ears? Well, as it turns out, many people did and thus finding Hidden Mickeys became a popular game for guests at EPCOT; so much so that from then on they were added to all the new parks as well as integrated into both new and old attractions at the existing parks. He would then explain how this book would not only be the first guide to Hidden Mickeys that encompassed all the Disney parks world wide, it would also be the first to include a picture of every one of them.

On his PDA he had prelisted every known Hidden Mickey in Walt Disney World, he had searched the internet for months to compile his list and worked out the best route in which to capture them all; almost 600 in total. And if he could find a few that were previously unrecorded, well, even better, after all they popped up and disappeared all the time; the newer or newly refurbished attractions could be a goldmine for discovering newly placed Mickeys.

Cameron checked his camera was ready to go, this morning he was going to cover Tomorrowland. He checked his PDA; he was going to start over at the Indy Speedway and make his way back to the main hub. When there, there would be two Hidden Mickeys to photograph, the first just outside the attraction formed by shadows on the pavement; the second visible only from the grandstand viewing area where ears could be seen on the billboard.

“Let the hunt begin;” Cameron said to himself as he headed down Main Street towards the north end of Tomorrowland.

***************************

"Again?" Manny Jenkins spoke into his walkie talkie; "Didn't it need fixing yesterday?"

"Affirmative, Handy Manny" came the response.

"I'll be right there." Manny said with a depressed voice. "Why did they have to call that bloody kid's show repairman Manny?" he thought to himself, "it's going to be yeas before i shake that nickname."

Manny made his was through the utilidors, heading for Stairway #13. The utilidors were a network of corridors where garbage disposal, cleaning and cast members could move between places in the park without being seen by the guests above. To most this would seem like an underground basement, in fact it was the real ground level of the park complete with roads, parking and restaurants; the ground that the guests walked on actually being the first and sometimes second floors of the park as Fantasyland was raised even higher than the rest of the park. Manny was incredibly grateful for them, moving around the park, navigating through the guests would be extremely slow compared to this way of getting from place to place. They had been put into the initial designs for this park after Walt himself had seen cast members wearing Adventureland uniforms walking through Tomorrowland to get to their posts at Disneyland. Walt was so angered that uniforms would spoil the place making effect that he devised this false underground system.

Manny sighed, he had made this walk too often lately. He unclipped his walkie talkie and dialled one of his assistant’s numbers.

"Yes boss?" came the reply.

"Liberty Square again Phil, you'll never guess what's not working this morning."

"Country Bears again?"

"Yep."

"What do they do to that thing every night?"

"Beats me; but it's our job to fix it."

"I'm under Tomorrowland, I'll be around ten minutes."

"See you there. Out."

This was becoming an almost daily problem. Seemed like every morning Manny would be called to take a look at the Country Bear Jamboree, he'd fix whatever the problem was, it would be fine all day; and then the next morning it would be broken again. "At least when we used to do Country Bear Christmas we could properly service the attraction at the same time as make the changes." Manny thought to himself; with the Christmas overlay of the attraction not happening in 2006 and again taken off the schedule for 2007, the attraction hadn’t had a proper servicing since Christmas 2005; and Manny was paying the consequences on a daily basis.

Manny emerged from stairway #13 and made the short walk to the Country Bear Jamboree show building where outside a cast member was apologising to guests that the attraction was out of order. Manny hated seeing the disappointed look on people’s faces; it wasn’t a new show but it was one of the most popular attractions in the park; it just had too many aspects that could and did go wrong.

Chapter Five

Q was now sure that Q depriving her of her powers had to have something to do with her fascination with the castle. The three had walked up Main Street and as they had gotten nearer the detailing of the brickwork and stained glass windows had began to shine; it was just a building she knew, but if she were a queen or a princess, she wanted this as her castle. She felt herself in major conflict, she mocked and scolded herself for even thinking these thoughts, “you’ve gone mad!” she thought to herself, but she couldn’t help it, she was imagining and fantasising and thinking about how she could integrate a representation of this building into the continuum.

q recognised the style of the buildings in the area the map had called Fantasyland. Q had often regaled q with the story of how he had embarrassed Picard by making him play the role of Robin Hood, the lead in a very old human tale, in one of his games. Like that tale, these buildings were set in medieval times; brick turrets, woodwork and colourful tent canopies surrounded the open areas. "Odd," he thought; "where do the flying elephants fit into the decor?" q never recalled Q mentioning flying elephants in his description of the timeframe; he was pretty sure that detail would have made it in.

''I'm going to kill Paris." Q muttered to himself as he looked out over the scene in front of him; children everywhere. If there was one thing that Q agreed with Picard about it was that children just aren’t tolerable; apart from his own of course. This wasn’t what Q had in mind. He looked down at the map he still held; “Look,” he said to Q and q still trying to sell excitement, “they have something called ‘It’s a Small World’; maybe the humans that built this place did know how insignificant their planet was.”

Nothing.

Q had been expected a droll laugh from Q and q, but neither were paying any attention to him. Q wasn’t even facing the same way as Q and q; she had her back to them and was just staring up into the air where the castle towered above them. She had a feint smile across her face and seemed to be completely oblivious to what was going on around; her eyes glistened as they reflected the sparkling accent of the castle turrets. q too had ignored him, but having shown q the Universe, Q recognised the look on his face; something had raised his intrigue. Q approached where q stood and followed his line of sight; registering his approach, q lifted his arm and pointed, “What race or species is that?”

“Race or species?” Q thought, “humans didn’t make first contact with Vulcans until 2063, 56 years from now and this place will be long gone by then”. Q was slightly disappointed in his son’s lack of knowledge. However basic and mortal the humans were, they had been the race that saved the Universe and even though they had needed his help to do it they were worth a basic knowledge of. He was about to express his thoughts when he saw what q had been looking at. Standing in the middle of groups of humans, particularly the children, were various creatures that even Q didn’t recognise as being from any planet he had visited; and that was all of them. One of them was tall in stature with an elongated nose, big ears, wearing an orange shirt and yellow waistcoat topped off with a tiny green hat and huge white gloves; a very odd looking creature indeed. The second creature was blue head to toe and practically naked apart from a garland of flowers around his neck. He, at least Q presumed it was a male, had dark blue eyes and sharp looking teeth. q posed his question again and Q had no answer to give; a quick use of powers seemed required.

"They, q," Q began like he had always known and the answer was obvious, "are Goofy and Stitch."

"What planet are they from?"

''My boy, they are merely humans in costumes meant to represent characters from popular Disney made media. Apparently being here requires a level of playing along with the facade; a suspension of disbelief."

q nodded in understanding. Q regained Q's attention and so pleased with his quip the first time he repeated, "Look, they have something called ‘It’s a Small World’; maybe the humans that built this place did know how insignificant their planet was.”

Nothing.

"Tough crowd;" Q thought.

...........To Be Continued

Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom - Fun TCG or Collectable TCG??

After 4 years of development and a few months of play testing and soft openings, Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom officially opened to the public this week.

Set in most lands of the Magic Kingdom, this is an interactive game that can be played by young and old as they make their way around the park, in a similar style to the Kim Possible game that has proven so popular in World Showcase at Epcot. However, while likely to appeal to the same or slightly wider audience, the game mechanics are very different between the games. Whereas in KP you were sent to locations and activated physical effects via a programmed mobile device (I’m sure anyone who has been in Showcase has heard the phone noise going off); in Sorcerers you are again sent to locations but instead of just activating an effect, now you actually interact with a screen portal which features animation of classic Disney characters; and you do this via the use of a magic card.

This is where the games becomes incredibly different, KP is basically a fun set of instructions of follow; Sorcerers is, on the surface, a Trading Card Game (TCG) and as such involves decisions, strategy and skill when deciding which card to use at which time. This not only makes it much more appealing to play for teens and adults, but will also increase repeatability as the game has levels of difficulty which are unlocked on completion of the previous level. What is also interesting is that, at the moment, few of the card details are actually involved in decision making and outcomes; thus the potential further development of the game mechanics is huge.

You can find out more about the game and see lots of pictures here.

You can also listen to an interview with Jonathan Ackley (creator of the game) on the latest Inside the Magic podcast.

However, having been an avid Yu-Gi-Oh! player and collector in the past as well as dabbling in Magic and Marvel VS I am wondering if this is going to be just a bit of fun that involves cards, or whether it is going to be a proper collectible TCG. My main concern on this is that from what I understand, there are currently 70 normal magic spell cards to collect; which is fine for the game itself; but if Disney wants to get collectors into this, there needs to be more depth in the collection. And I don’t just mean more cards because with TCG collectors it isn’t all about numbers, it’s about rarity; and the general acceptance that the rarer the card, the shinier it should be.

Currently the only card that would be classed as non normal is the cast member exclusive card, but from what I can tell, it looks exactly the same as the other 70 and thus its rarity is indistinguishable from others unless you know. Disney have done a pretty good job on LE pins and vinylmations in the past (although ended up flooding the market in both), so I would be surprised if they didn’t do this well on the rarity front; but TCGs are a little different because the product itself is pretty unsubstantial and just writing LE3000 on it isn’t likely to get over as well as on the back or bottom of a pin or vinylmation. Unfortunately, this reminds me of the last time I was given a game card from Disney for VMK and it was more of a voucher than anything so it was just thrown in a pocket and screwed up. If a card has rarity value, it has to seem special; even if it just looks prettier.

For instance, when Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG debuted in the early 90’s there were the following card differentiators (with several further levels added since the original 5 in later years):

Normal                Plan Print
Rare                      Silver lettering on title
Super Rare          Foil picture, normal lettering on title
Ultra Rare           Foil picture, gold lettering on title
Secret Rare         Sparkly foil picture, silver lettering

Thus it was very simple for anyone with even a basic knowledge to tell the difference between card rarities and straight away associated value to a collector. And for those without basic knowledge, whenever a card was given away in a magazine or such, it would make it clear “FREE ULTRA RARE CARD”.

Disney needs to create its own legend to differentiate card rarities and the sooner the better if they want to get TGC collectors on board from the start. At the moment, the collectable value side is missing from the cards in circulation; and while I have no doubt that people will be trying to get them all (me included); I also do very much doubt that people will be avidly collecting them like pins or vinylmations.

I should also point out that “rare” level cards on most TCGs aren’t actually that rare, they are usually quite widely available; just not as widely published as normal cards; it isn’t until the super/ultra rare card levels that real rarity is found; rare cards just look that little bit special because of the extra foil.

So, if I were trying to promote the game and get some levels of cards rarity into circulation I would do the following.

• Give a rare card to each family that stays at a moderate level hotel
• Give a super rare card to each family that stays in a luxury level hotel
• Give a rare card to each family that eat at certain table service restaurants
• Give a super rare card to each family that eat at certain signature restaurants
• Arm WDW transportation operators with rare cards to give to people at their discretion. These should include bus drivers, monorail and boat staff.
• Give a rare card to all participants in the Jedi Training Academy
• Give an ultra rare card to the family of the day in each park
• Include a super rare card in an editon of D23 Magazine
• Include a rare card with every entry to Mickey’s Not So Scary and Merry Christmas Parties

Imagine getting a Jedi Mickey card as the Jedi Training reward and being able to have the mouse attack Hades with a lightsaber.

However this is where we hit a snag. Unlike with most TCGs, Disney can’t just go creating new cards at will; its not just a case of marrying a picture, a name and some stats. Each card needs programming into the game system, which probably isn’t too bad; but from what I understand, the effect of the card is animated into the game, therefore that is going to create a lot of work if another 100 cards are added.

The Answer…Variants

Variants are a very powerful thing in TCG collecting and should be fully utilised by Disney in Sorcerers as a quick and easy way to bring rare cards into the game and collecting with minimal effort. Essentially they are the same card, with the same name and same stats, same interactive qualities so there is absolutely no programming to be done to the system to include them; the only difference is the picture on the card. So say 40 of the cards already in existence are adopted by a place, transport or activity as I have already suggested above; from that point on, apart from the normal version which is given out in starter packs, all rarity versions of the card should be synonymous with that adopter. The artwork is then changed from the original to something new, obviously still maintaining the character the card is named after but also including the adopter’s logo to highlight its origin; and of course it should be shiny.

The result of this is that the card selection is hugely increased to almost double with a good percentage having a level of rarity; and all without any work having to be done other than designing new pictures (of which there are probably plenty already in existence from the design process). Most importantly, these artworks should then be changed seasonally. After just a year, there would be 160 rare variants in existence and now we are in the TCG collectors zone. There will be some who want to have every variant from the Summer 2013, there will be some who want to have every Le Cellier or Polynesian hotel variant of their cards, there will be some who want every card they can get their hands on; either way, due to the circumstances to get them and the limited time span for each artwork; the cards themselves will become collectable as pieces of the TCG whether played with or not.

Probably the real issue with everything I have suggested so far is that while it makes the TCG collectable and may help popularise the game in the parks; none of what I have suggested makes money for Disney; and any money that will be circulating will be heavily on the secondary eBay market between collectors. Sure, there is the chance that having the cards at locations will incentivise collectors into staying on property or eating at certain restaurants; but there aren’t exactly capacity issues in either of those to rectify.

However, as there isn’t any money being made at launch, Disney may be treating the cost of card and map production as more of an attraction running cost than a profit source; and this can only be good for the game and its growth. In my opinion, if Disney is smart they will keep things this way because it makes the entire game completely free of barriers to entry and thus will always have the chance to pull new people in.

Besides, there is plenty of money to be made on the accessories market; because if Disney gives you all these free cards including limited editions and rare ones; well, you are going to need a special folder to keep them in; especially if it comes with an ultra rare version of a card that you can only get with the folder. And when the folder is too big and heavy to carry around, well, you are going to need a travel wallet for them; not to mention sleeves to put the cards in to keep them in good condition when being played with. And when you then add the tshirts etc etc; well, then you have a profit making franchise built around a free game with plenty of collectable fun and rarity value for those who really get into it.

Unfortunately, I will not get the chance to experience Sorceres of the Magic Kingdom until Oct/Nov, but I am already looking forward to trying it out and thinking about whether I go empty handed or go with a deck of cards already in hand and ready to go. I promise you all this though, if rare cards are being given out at restaurants of the like and you leave it there, it wont be there 20 seconds later if I am at an adjacent table and see it laying there for grabbing.

If you’ve played the game or are a TCG card collector and have a view on whether this has the ability to become a collectable TCG or is just a bit of fun with cards; please post your thoughts and let me know. And of course, please feel free to shamelessly plug this blog as much as you like to twitter, facebook or anywhere else; I won’t complain.

Speak Soon :)