ginzo

Tell me about it! I think it's far better to travel when you're young and healthy than to put it off. $1,100 is a decent fare to Japan. I'm going to wind up paying more than that to fly to Europe this summer, which is nowhere near as far as Asia. International airfare is a racket, but it keeps most airlines afloat. Domestic ain't profitable.

^Who would pay to see that?

This made national news??? Really??? This probably isn't even a felony. Yeah, the guy's a creep and should have his day in court if found, but I just don't see how this is national news. Note: I've been groped in public by random drunk strangers of the opposite sex in an even more personal place than this. It was annoying, but I wouldn't have even dreamed of calling the police over it.

^^So, they found another sucker^H^H^H^H^H^Hinvestor for the park? Nobody is wishing them ill here, but you don't need a functional crystal ball to have a good idea how a third season would turn out for the park. Without radical changes anyway. Trying to sell the exact same thing that this market didn't want for a third season is sheer and utter madness.

Maybe they can re-open the property as a flea market/tractor pull venue. That might be more appealing to the locals.

^I went in expecting a Swedish version of Indiana Beach, but there are more differences than you'd expect. Indiana Beach has a seedy feel to it. Gröna Lund is much classier. And, ahem, the people in Stockholm are easier on the eyes. I'm not knocking IB in any way. I'd rather go there than most places. Just pointing out that going to a park in Sweden is very different from going to a park in Indiana.

Interesting thoughts. I agree that the current home computing platform is counterproductive and annoying: DO YOU WANT TO CHECK FOR UPDATES??? ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T WANT TO CHECK FOR UPDATES??? WE'VE UPDATED YOUR FTP CLIENT. NOW YOU NEED TO REBOOT 75 TIMES! Really the job of technology is to get out of your way and let you do your work. But PCs have become more of a giant pyramid scheme where they try to get you to pay a vig to several random software companies just to establish a baseline level of functionality. A level of functionality that should just come out of the damn box. On the other hand, I remember some particularly provocative speeches by Scott McNeely of Sun Micro from about 10 years ago. He was talking about killing the PC in favor of "information appliances", at COMDEX no less. Back then, "information appliances" was the cool buzz word. But nothing ever really came out of that. Of course, for Mr. McNeely that was just a sales pitch for more Sun servers: Move the processing away from the desktop and to his giant, expensive servers. And, yet, here we are 10 years later and still barely closer to that vision of handy "information appliances" that make the PC unneeded.

^You are evil!

Hanno gets a "win" for not waiting for that boat ride.

^Don't worry, Guy. More cat photos for you soon.

16/20. A crap score, but good considering I'm not big on memorizing this stuff.

I'm not sure just reopening the ride is an option now, unless they want to budget some additional money for lawsuits. Any injury that happens within 200 miles of that ride is now going to invite another legal entanglement.

^You're going back a few years with that Arrow publication. With today's predatory legal environment, I wonder if you'd see a ride manufacturer make such a suggestion today.

Hasn't this been Shapiro's main goal with all their parks: To make them all more family-friendly?

Like most businesses do, NBC took the cheaper way out. Supposedly, Leno's buy out would have cost about $100 million more than Conan's did. Whether this screws them in the long term or not, NBC did have a fire to put out with Leno's horrible lead-in to 11 o'clock. That being said, I can't stand Jay Leno. He's never been anywhere near as good as Johnny Carson was. His voice makes me want to instantly change the channel. NBC should have replaced Jay with the Fruitcake Lady while she was still alive. I think Conan will do just fine though ultimately, even if he doesn't have his dream job.

Because the alps are prone to getting fogged in later in the day, we got up early the next morning. Be vewry, vewry quiet. I'm hunting wabbits. Much less snow down here. Interesting way to advertise. Buzzing the other gondola. The descent. The Piz Gloria station, where we ate breakfast, as viewed from out on the summit. Mas. More of the view from the summit. The drop. Walking out onto the summit. Anyone up for a hike? Yes, you can hike up or down the Schilthorn. But I'm not that crazy. And besides, the magic of the Swiss Alps is that they bring you into nature without leaving any the comforts of home, like cable cars instead of climbing. Still more view. Still more from the top. We got lucky with the weather, which is very temperamental here. More from the top. From the top. Here I am having breakfast at 9,700 feet. The food was surprisingly excellent and the restaurant rotates to give you a continuously changing view of the scenery. Note: The sparkling wine they give you is especially strong at 9,700 feet at 8 AM. Here we are at the summit of the Schilthorn. This station might look familiar because they blew it up in the Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". Yes, this was the crappy Bond movie with George Lazenby. Almost at the summit. The view from the side. The view from behind. More of the view. On the next cable car. At the first station: Birg. Nothing to do here, but transfer to the next cable car. Approaching the first station. More of the view on the ascent. Every time the car goes through one of these pylons, it shoots forward in an almost uncontrolled manner. And up. Going up. And got on this cable car.

I don't get this thing at all, but I'm not an Apple user or fan. From what I've seen, this one has left many die hard Apple fans scratching their heads.

What's a non-rude way to offer a SFMM ride op $20 to let a toddler ride a Vekoma roller skater?

Thanks guys. More to come soon!

We left Salzburg early in the morning to take a train to Zürich. From Zürich, we transferred to Lucerne, and then to Interlaken. From Interlaken, we took a private train to the town of Lauterbrunnen. Then we took a cable car followed by a cogwheel train to village called Mürren, which is about 5400 feet up in the alps. Yes, it was a long, tiring day of traveling, but it was worth it. The Swiss Alps are my favorite place to visit in all of Europe. In true Swiss alps form, we took the cable car back up to Mürren for the night. The fanciest hotel in Gimmelwald. After we checked into the chalet, we decided to do a quick hike down to a smaller village called Gimmelwald. Along the way, we spotted this fondue factory. Another cat shot for Guy. Now that we're finally at the village, here is a picture of a kitty cat for Guy. More rocks. Is this why they call it a "scenic" train? Still on the train. Now we're on the scenic cogwheel train. I'll show you what the rolling stock looks like later. Yep, it's a cable car. True story: There were electricians working on the system while the car was operating. They had a mess of wires on the floor and were flipping through the manual. This was a bit scary. On the cable car. Apparently, there used to be a funicular here, but it was replaced when rock slides became a problem. Riding the train to Lauterbrunnen. Here we are at Interlaken. The public rail network ends here, which means that rail passes only get you a 25% discount from here on. Swiss scenery. The water is a shade of blue that I had never seen before. This is one of the lakes that surrounds Interlaken. Still on the train. I think this is Lake Lucerne. Can you guess what country we're in now? On the train from Lucerne to Interlaken.

From Hallstatt, we took the Österreichische Bundesbahnen (ÖBB) train back west to Salzburg. I failed to take any pictures of the Augustiner Bräu beer garden. So, I got this one from the Interweb. This place is awesome. It seats like 1,500 outside under countless chestnut trees. You get your liter of beer, salted carved white radish, some pork, and you're ready to go. Wrong! Here we are at the entrance to the Augustiner Bräu, an excellent brewery/beer hall/beer garden. Walking along the Salzach river. My fellow travelers were yelling at me by this point, claiming that I didn't know where I was going. From the fortress museum: dangerous stick men with pointed sticks. Salzburg old town and Salzach river, as viewed from the fortress. Yet another view from up on the fortress. It was not open. More fortress. Up in the fortress. To get to the funicular that takes you up to the fortress. For the McDonald's fans here. This is Stiftskeller St. Peter, a restaurant which claims to be the oldest in the world. Supposedly open since 803 AD. Austrian graves are immaculate because they are rented. If none of your relatives care enough to pay the rent, you're gone. So, these rented graves are well-tended by the relatives. An Austrian graveyard. Nice. Hohensalzburg Castle, a very intimidating-looking fortress. Just one more shot of the cathedral. Mozart was the organist here for a few years, BTW. Even though I'm a heathen, I really like this church. It was built in a short amount of time, which means everything coordinates well. Entrance to Salzburg's cathedral. Without this guy, nobody would visit Salzburg. Salzburg is known for these wrought iron signs. Traditionally, they would have symbols, not writing on them because they advertised to a largely illiterate public.

This is a bummer. Budapest has been on my radar screen for places to visit for a while now. The closing of the park won't change this for me, but it would definitely be sad to miss the park entirely. Central/Eastern Europe has so few parks to begin with. It's a shame to see them lose what little they have. If this does reopen, maybe I should change my UK pre-trip to be a run from Budapest to Vienna to Prague.

^Thanks. It is a very scenic area. Though stay tuned: The most scenic place by far is coming up very soon.

^I'm not sure that keeping the botanical gardens is anything unique to Florida. Both the Legoland parks I've been to have had really, really nice landscaping. Remember, with Miniland being the "heart and soul" of Legoland the parks are, at their core, an aesthetic experience.