erikscottberg.com

Here’s a great video mashup of Home Alone and the trailer for I Am Legend.

Since I’m taking some vacation this week, we went to the zoo yesterday. You can see picture here. Here are a few more for your enjoyment (the first one is a random one I found online).

_________________________________________________________________

If you’re having problems reading the text in the picture click here for the full sized version. Then come back and click here for the final frame.

Today’s traffic rant has to do with common courtesy. It’s kind of a follow up to my first Traffic Tuesday. That post dealt with trying to turn right at a light and being blocked by an oblivious driver in front of you who won’t pull forward.

Today, we’ll put ourselves into the car in front. If you’ve ever moved forward so someone else can get through, you’ve probably experienced “the wave.” This is the kind gesture that signifies gratitude for your obvious awareness and concern for others.

For some reason there are some people who can’t/won’t/don’t respond in this way. This has confounded the wisdom of men for ages, but here are some of the possible reasons why:

• They are in a hurry because they’re running late for work. But they’re not very late because they think they can still make it on time, and waving at you would slow them down at least a second or two.
• They are so safety conscious that taking one hand off of their steering wheel would break their perfect 10 year record of “10 and 2″ driving.
• They are blind. Okay, it’s a stretch, but it does account for most of the bad driving that occurs.
• They’re concentrating so hard on turning as described in Traffic Tuesday 3, they don’t realize they’re leaving something out.
• They’ve just left an amusement park and rode the Train Ride all day and they’re tired of waving at complete strangers.
• They believe that the universe revolves around themselves and the fact that you moved forward only proves that belief to them. Because they think this is true, they expect that everyone would be waving at them.

Bottom line: Just wave people.

Today we took the boys to Kiddieland. I can only describe it as a semipermanent carnival that came to Melrose Park a hundred years ago (okay, really 79) and then never left.

It’s ancient.

No really, Bethany’s grandma rode the same rides when she was young. Not new versions of the old rides, but the same exact rides.

But the great thing about Kiddieland is that the kids don’t realize they’re riding ancient instruments of destruction. Here’s an unofficial official list of requirements for these rides:

• No harnesses. – These only restrict thrill (a.k.a. “death”) seekers. A rope that loosely drapes over your lap should suffice. For all rides.
• Paint it once. – The structural integrity of these things can bear the load of precisely one coat of paint. Anymore and chaos will unfold.
• If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. – Every ride does the same thing. Go in a circle in a random, cheaply made vehicle.
• Have undertrained, underpaid, underenthusiastic, unresponsible people operate everything in the park. Concerned parent: “Isn’t that kid too small for this ride?” Worker: “Meh…” (just so I don’t sued, this didn’t actually happen, but it wouldn’t surprise me…)

I made some other observations today about amusement park life in general:

• Why does every park have to have a “train ride”?
• Why do the people who ride the train ride think they’re in some sort of parade or are so important that they have to wave at everyone? Does anyone care? “Hey, look at me. I’m so important because they let me on this exclusive train ride.”
• The Latin root of “Amusement park” is sweat.
• Why do they still sell fanny packs? Who buys them? I saw a lady today who looked like she was going on a survival hike with her ultra-delux bag around her hips.
• Apparently at Kiddieland, the normal park rules like, “no line jumping” don’t apply.

To top the day off, we went to my favorite place for hot dogs: Gene’s and Jude’s. They’re the best hands down. Next time you’re in the Chicagoland area, go there.