I set out a little later than my planned departure time of mid-morning mainly due to a six and two enjoyed the night before still affecting me this morning. Wrote my little post directly preceding this one about my discovery of an upcoming total eclipse across the country this time next year, then got my shit together and drove through the nasty, nasty traffic, not only of 27 once you get to Lake Wales and areas north, but of course, I4 through all that Disney shit. Got through the Disney area and still hit stopped traffic due to breakdowns and, most likely, because as this weekend has witnessed, since I went deeper into I4 specifically on Sunday, things have changed in the past few years. Either I've gotten used to a more rural laid back driving manner, or Orlando has gotten more like Boston in that people drive like fucking bats out of hell. It's outrageous! So after what seemed like more than a decade of construction snafus in dealing with I4 through Orlando, now I'll be looking at smooth roads, but confusing on-ramps, off-ramps and toll lanes that I've never experienced in the past, making it seem like a whole new highway, and a brand new generation of crazy mofos zipping and zooming past my little slow-moving Hulk.
Filled up with gas at the Love Bug Sunoco, 26 bucks, got a Coke Zero $4, and set out leaving Sebring about 11:30 a.m. Making the gates of Universal at around 2:00. Walking okay today except that it was hot and I was experiencing that old familiar photosensitivity unable to keep my eyes open if the sun was reflecting off of surfaces too brightly getting dizzy and feeling ready to pass out this shit again.
Made it on over to NBC Sports Grill, went up to the second floor bar, sat down, and waited to get the attention of a bartender, but in the meantime a little girl of about 10 years old, cuz you know, it's totally fucking appropriate for parents to bring their little children into a bar, that's the way it is nowadays, she fucking spills her glass of what I guess was Sprite or something, I mean I don't think her parents were that cray cray to give her a actual fucking alcoholic drink. The glass shatters on the granite bar, shards of glass and Sprite and ice dump into my lap, since I'm sitting right next to her. Great, the girl doesn't even fucking apologize. She just like cowers away and the mom is all like "it's okay honey it's okay are you hurt?" nobody asked me if I'm fucking hurt! fuck it! I help out and I say oh everything's okay like a good guy I am but since I don't want to sit there and have to acknowledge this accident I decide, screw that, the bartender hasn't even taken my order, so I'll just mosey on downstairs and go to that bar! And that's what I do.
That bar, no little children sitting next to me, in fact it's a bar that is more proper in having all adults around it! Yay! Yay for the adults! I order a Dos Equis draft and a crispy grouper sandwich. Menu states it comes with caper tartar sauce. Regular tartar sauce? No. Okay, can it be on the side so I can pluck out the capers? Sure. Sandwich arrives 20 minutes later. Tartar sauce has no capers to be seen. If they're in there, they're minced and I don't taste them so I think that's just their menu trying to prop up their shit like it's something special. The sandwich? This fucking thing was $20 and it was just a tiny piece of deep fried frozen fish on a, ooh, brioche bun. Whatever!
After this lunch, I make my way into Studios. Hey, my biometric finger thing worked this time! First time in all the visits this year. Yay! Wait times are crazy! It's packed as all hell. What did I expect? The Saturday before Easter? Of course it's busy! Kind of makes the whole concept of this Mardi Gras celebration a little bit effed up, I mean, here we are celebrating Mardi Gras the last bit of decadence before Lent, but the next day is Easter, so effectively, it's like we're cutting lent out all together! Take that Christians! You culturally appropriate (Easter from the Pagans) We culturally appropriate (Cadbury Eggs)
Across from Mel's Drive In where the old main stage used to be back when the B52's held their gig here, there's an assembly of food and drink kiosks and I order a $12 single-use Number 5 Punch (a more citrusy Hurricane). According to the menu, at this rate, it's served in a plastic non-souvenir disposable cup. You want to pay more, you can get a souvenir cup, for, I think, $16 or something. Well the nice lady serving me gives me my drink in what is clearly a souvenir cup! It even has a little button on the bottom where I can have flashy purple and white LED light glowing through my drink, at no extra charge! I like to think she did it either because I was a sweetie or we're getting towards the end of the seasonal event in a couple weeks anyway and they probably have a lot of these fucking cups sitting around. I suck this down, put the souvenir cup in my cargo pant pocket number six or seven, you know how cargo pants are, I got plenty of pockets, it's all a matter of which sizes which and what will fit what, and slightly stumble my buzzed butt into the single rider line at Transformers.
Now that I've seen pretty much all the Transformers movies, I understand the whole bit about The Shard and all that. Last time I rode this, I didn't know what the hell they were talking about. Did that enhance the ride any more? Not really. It was still okay but somehow it's not as crisp and clear as Spider-Man, in my opinion, but it does have a lot of movement and I was swaying and smacking the sides of my car quite a bit. And slicing down the wait time from the 50 minutes the rest of the suckers had to wait to 10 minutes for single rider line, yeah it was worth it!
Unlike, it seems, the rest of the world, I actually like Fast and Furious. It's a pretty good ride I think I've written it only once though but from what I remember it was a pretty cool 3D immersion unfortunately unless you're a YouTube vlogger that seems to dig on this and make fun of that other people also like it since this wait was 60 minutes and no single rider line so had to skip it.
Watched The Blues Brothers do their full show they sound pretty damn good and then after the show they rode away on their vintage car with that big bull horn on the top of it and I was wondering since it was pretty quiet as it was riding by is it the body of an old 1970s car that was electrified oh no this was gas and it smelled like old fashioned cars exhaust it was no denying it in fact it was cool for an old foggy like me cuz it was bit of a Nostalgia oh yeah that's what car is used to smell like of course nowadays I'm sure they have to have all kinds of exemptions from the law regarding the carbon footprint that that daily Traverse creates Upon Our delicate Mother Earth
I walked over to Diagon Alley and found a sweet bench to park my butt at again was it 95° and sweltering no, it was upper 80s but I'm still in the fitness category of not exactly loving it walking around even in moderate heat like this recent scale says 288 I kind of side smile at that because it doesn't feel it it feels like I'm still in the 300s I even tried the test seat at Gringotts and there is no way I would be able to fit little side note about that test seat I don't know if it was always that way or if this is a new politically correct way of not fat shaming people but I'm pretty sure test seats used to have a light that was red if you were not able to put the lap bar down and green if you were able to like green being yay you fit you succeed but red meaning buzzer you fail well now the red is substituted with blue so it's blue if you fail much milder than red not so much of a want want loser I don't know maybe it's just my memory is flaking to me I like the red gets me motivated I like the electronics saying you are too fat sir lose some fucking weight and come back next time bye watch the new show while I sat on my bench in Diagon Alley it was kind of like a puppet show I couldn't really hear from my vantage point what was going on but it kind of looked cool.
Slowly made my way over to Hollywood Boulevard across from the Bourne Stunt-tacular, I mean Boring Shitacular, where I waited a full 2 hours. Yep I know how lazy sitting on a bench for 2 hours! But I really was kind of pooped and plus also I wanted to ensure I got good seats for the parade and I did. I caught a shit ton of beads and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Right after the parade, I made my way out of the park, along with a few hundred others, over to my 340 ish row ET parking. This means I was about as far away from CityWalk as you can get and I was parked towards the exit lane at the very end, so yeah, after all that walking, a long walk to get to my car. Hopped in Hulk (my car, not the ride) and drove on down to my hotel for the night: a new place since Avanti decided to be greedy with their pricing and you can't get anything less than $160, so screw them, I went to EconoLodge on I-Drive. Oh yes, I know I have some sketchy experiences at certain EconoLodges, but you know what, I researched this online first, read reviews, and when I got there, though it was already almost 9:00 and the lobby looked a little sketchy, as well as the parking lot full of a bunch of foreigners, and one dude on the other side of the fence smoking weed, the room itself was pretty decent! Just like the website said. So I think I got a good deal for $105, including resort fees and all that shit.
Took a quick shower and walked over to Buffalo Wild Wings which was pretty much right next door loud and rowdy crowd watching pay-per-view kickboxing enjoying the homoerotic site of sweaty shirtless dudes grabbing hold of each other in all number of positions. Had wings onion rings and a couple draft Dos Equis too crowded and noisy so as soon as I was finished I skedaddled back to my room.
The room was clean, but the bed wasn't the most comfortable. It was a little too fluffy and bouncy for my tastes. I like it firm and solid. You know, like my cock! haha I wish! But anyway I got a few hours sleep anyway, watched a couple lame movies with closed captioning that I couldn't get rid of despite what button on the remote I clicked! How irritating. Checked out in the morning around 9:00 a.m.
Sunday, April 9th, 2023
For the rest of Western Christendom (minus the Orthodox which follow their own little calendar) but for me who could give a shit less about that, today was Easter -- it was a much more important day today -- it's my birthday!
I get out of my hotel room and it's like WTF?!
What happened to the weather? It took me by surprise! I knew today would be cloudy, but I didn't figure that it would be about 20 degrees cooler than yesterday! It was barely in the 70s in the morning and all day long I don't think it got higher than 72! A lot of wind and yes some drizzle and a little spit or to of rain. I thought it never rained on my birthday unless I was in Cozumel? Well I guess that tradition is out the window!
My muscles were too achy and frankly, because of the lack of good sleep, I was too tired to go back to Universal this morning. I decided to just take it easy, tour around Orlando, Seminole County area visiting old haunts, munching on McDonald's steak, egg and cheese bagel, and sipping a much-needed large coffee. Farted around for a few hours until I made my way to the Mills and Princeton area past the Orlando Museum of Art and Orlando Museum of Science and into the Orlando Shakespeare theater complex. I booked this event months ago, as soon as I discovered it online: Harvey Firestein's Kinky Boots! I'd wanted to see this for years and here it was finally in Orlando!