Back From Vacation

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you might have noticed I haven't posted anything in a couple of weeks. I was on vacation, and I mostly ditch the interwebs and tech while I'm relaxing on one. It's quite enjoyable to just not worry about anything and then get back and bam! twenty million emails and notifications on Facebook. That keeps me busy for a day or so just to catch up. For my vacations, I head off to Disneyland, for a week at a time. A week in the happiest place on earth is just not enough time, and ever since there was a report that some guy went seven hundred days in a row, I decided this would be a record I am more than willing to break. I enjoy Disneyland more than any other place on the planet, I have never been to Magic Mountain, Knottsberry Farm, or Lego Land, because, if you're going to be that close to Disneyland, just spend the extra and go to a real park.

I don't go for all the rides anymore, they're still enjoyable but I'm just there to rest, relax, and take in the ambiance. I have sat at the Main Street train station for over three hours just people watching, and I had never noticed they are always having little shows pop up, mostly one of their bands, or just silly crap with the characters. One of the funniest things to watch at Disneyland is a mother with older children, that clearly have never been to an amusement park, and that mom has made an itinerary of what the family will do, when they will do it, where and what they will eat and at what time. I have an annual pass so I just go with the flow, but I remember trying to cram in all the joy of Disneyland in one day and it's not possible. Really, it isn't, that place is huge and to just take in all the fun stuff of just one part of the park will take more than a day, let alone trying to force your way through the lines to get to one of the mountain rides, and fast passes are not a “skip to the front of the line” pass, there is one but it's like thirty grand and a full membership into Club 33. Any of the major attractions of the park are a guaranteed hour or more wait, unless you know some little tricks that I have and will not be sharing. Okay, here's one, go for those rides first thing, most people get breakfast first and then they will jam up the line because they were “smart” in getting that fast pass first. Did you remember to go on the ride first and then get those fast passes for the rest of the family? A lot don't, the dumb shits. I went on Big Thunder Mountain three times in a row because there was no line for the ride but one hell of a long one just for the fast pass, when the line got long I got my pass and came back later. My mom asked where I was, because I had all the passes to go meet back up with them. I told her there was a line, which was true, and since I had the fast passes, she didn't need to know I had already been on that ride, until we were eating our meal before using said passes. With those moms with the plans, they are hilarious, because they are the ones that are going to get pissed off at the end of the day, because their perfect family vacation was ruined and that is why they “HATE” everything Disney.

One of the other people to watch out for is what I call a Jan. Like the second oldest daughter on the Brady Bunch. She's a bitch, because everything is about someone else. A Jan also is not gender based, there are plenty of ales that will clearly fall into the Jan category. I was a Jan once, because my sister has Celiac Disease, she can't eat anything with gluten, and she caused problems when it was time to eat. We had to eat where ever the fuck she wanted to, and I admit, pissed me off to no end and I would make her cry. Because I'm a jerk, I wanted something else, and didn't get my way. That is a Jan, can't get what they want, so “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!”. During this last trip, the most memorable Jan I encountered was on the train. The train is enjoyable when your feet are tired but you don't want to sit in the hot sun at a table, and it was hot when we were there (113 degrees in the middle of October, with no breeze to move that moisture filled air, is just wrong when it's busy as hell for the whole week). A family of five, the youngest was a boy around eight years old, that was clearly the reason they were getting on the train in the first place, and two daughters, one either graduating from high school or just did, and Jan was a stereotypical fifteen year old. Tina Fey couldn't have written this girl any better for Mean Girls. And Jan did not want to be on the train, and whined about this fact so the rest of us on that attraction could hear her. She wanted to go do something else, mom says no, Jan whines more about how this was torturing her, but dad trying to be heroic jumps in and says he will stay on with the boy, picture the scene from Bambi (“I will train the boy, your mother can't be with us anymore!) if they wanted to go do something else, and then mom shuts down that idea, and Jan plops herself into the seat and loudly exhales, through her nose for complete dramatic effect. I laughed, my dad laughed, my sister smirked, and my mom was clueless to the whole event. On the entire five minute journey to the next station Jan sat there, harrumphing the whole damn time, her mom telling her other kids how great it was that they were together, and how sweet her son was, and Jan would glance sharply toward any of us in that train that chose to laugh at that moment. And as I am a complete asshole that just doesn't care about other people's feelings, I laughed harder and louder, and told my dad all about my theory of the Jan and how we were sitting near one. The girl's mom laughed along with us, knowing it was pissing her daughter off even more. God that lady was great, she even forced her family through the Grand Canyon part of the ride for no other reason other than to piss off that girl, and when the boy said he wanted to go do something else, the woman said okay and then winked when she called her daughter Jan. I wonder if she's related, because that level of assholeness only exists in my genetic code.

On the first Saturday of my vacation this year, my family's annual passes are blacked out on Saturdays, so we were not at Disneyland. So we bummed around Anaheim and the cities around it. And nothing says family outing, like a trip to Lens Crafters. We had those employees laughing for the three hours we were in there, and I doubt they will ever forget us. Or they took our pictures and warned everyone. Either way it was a good day. We also went to other stores, not just harassing the people at a Lens Crafters, even for us that's a bit excessive. We also hit up a Home Town Buffet, I love those places, because I'm what some people call frugal, I call it cheap. All I can eat buffets, at a decent price, good enough for me. While we were eating some guy walked by my table with a knife strapped to his hip. Not a dinner knife, but a small bowie knife, in a holster of leather and something he clearly tried o get to look like kevlar. This guy was not Rambo, I doubt he had ever done a sit up, I can only picture him rolling out of a chair and just landing on his feet was just pure luck. This guy was Cartman from South Park, he was loud mouthed about that knife on his hip and how he was trained in its use, I told my dad that it was all learned through five minute Youtube videos who's production values were brought to us all by Mom's Basement. He bragged about various things, all nerdy items that he read off the internet, and we all waited for him to become yellow like Comicbook Guy. He talked endlessly about everything from Lord of the Rings, to Harry Potter, to Marvel Comics and how he was personally training to become the next Batman. I don't know how he was able to eat food, because he didn't shut up long enough to stuff any of it into his loud mouth. Also you'd think if he wouldn't shut up long enough to eat, he wouldn't be at the close to five hundred pounds he was clearly at. When I got back with another plate of food, he was busy trying to persuade his also hefty friend, whom we can only assume had also bought this guy dinner, to buy him a game at GameStop because his account was frozen there for some “Bullshit reason of them kicking him out of the place because he refused to remove his goddamn knife, and they all know my name is FUCKING GREG!” We made fun of this guy for the whole week, and when one of us did something stupid we blamed FUCKING GREG. We also made fun of him right there at our table, because... We're assholes, that's the only reason I've got anymore for this kind of shit. I picture this guy as a comic book character now; FUCKING GREG and the Misadventures with Mashed Potatoes! FUCKING GREG and the Trouble At The Barn! FUCKING GREG and How He Got His Groove Back! FUCKING GREG could be a smash hit. The newest super hero team up: FUCKING GREG Helps A Jan Off The Train!