Probably hot and sunny today. Yesterday was nice for most of the day, cool and cloudy, but after noon it got very hot in the sun. So I napped. Later was nice, after the sun went down, especially when there was a breeze.
We spent the morning in Animal Kingdom. The Avatar attraction is still cool, but needs some alignment. They’ve redone the intro stuff, replacing Sigourney Weaver, and taking out most of the eco crap. Not all. Basically they took out almost everything that referred to movie stuff.
We spent the afternoon napping, and evening eating in Epcot. BTW, they re-did the intro stuff for Mission:space too, replacing the white man with a black woman. There is a chinese guy in a wheelchair in the background, running a console too.
Apparently this is pride week which someone suggested was part of the reason for low attendance. It explains all the rainbow crep I keep seeing.
Dunno if it’s related, but the low attendance has been nice for us.
Today will be universal’s Epic. No Fastpasses so it’s gonna suck.
I’ll see what security is like there, when the demographic is typically different than WDW.
I’m falling asleep at the keyboard it’s time for me to stack some zzz’s.
nick
Gary Sinise is a non-person now.
Oh, what did Gary do?
————
I’m up, with coffee in front of me. (instead of a frontal lobotomy.)
It’s very sunny.
n
Re: Mission Space. My wife and I rode it years ago. We looked at the two ride option, and, being able to handle anything, chose the orange. Big mistake. I barely remember anything about the ride. I was focused solely on not vomiting. If the ride had gone on a few minutes more, I would have. My wife was in the same boat. We have never tried the milder version, and never will. I almost start sweating just walking by.
Sinise is Republican. He doesn’t support Trump, but he does a lot of charity work for veterans.
As for Disney, Sinise joined the “CSI” franchise the year after “Mission: Space” opened. The Mouse is still bitter about “CSI” nearly 30 years later.
Beyond Disney, “Forrest Gump” is not regarded as a great movie, and “Apollo 13” is too white and male.
I don’t think Gina Torres is long for that ride since she sells “Suits” views on Netflix, but Disney has so many problems right now that re-shooting the ride intro probably isn’t high on the priority list.
And Bubba Gump’s at Universal Citywalk.
Oh. Then they get a threefer by replacing him.
——-
Mission space went to a “mild” version of the mars mission and an even milder version after the kid died. They called it the “intense”mission and a “less intense” mission. Basically they spun one centerfuge less.
now it is a “green”mission which people told me is a tour of earth, and a “more intense” orange mission, which is the Mars mission (the reduced one, not the original).
The most important advice and warning for that ride is only given in passing as you finally board the vehicle. Keep your head back, and eyes forward. Leaning forward and turning your head will MESS YOU UP. The barf bags are not there for ambiance. My second ride on the original version I leaned forward and looked sideways at other party members. I could not walk without help after that and it took hours to get back to normal.
We leave for Epic soon, I figure we’ll be standing in lines all day. Hopefully the harry potter and mario cart rides will be worth it to the kid.
n
Sinbad did a riff on fast food workers years ago. It was about the registers only had pictures of food and none of the workers could even make change since they had no maths skills after high school.
We replaced most of the carpet and tile in the Vegas house with vinyl planking of MrsAtoz’s choice. The 4th bedroom is a Casita which got planking, too. I don’t hate carpet, but my bare feet like the cold hard floor. Easier to clean, too.
We’ve already looked at A/C replacement in Vegas with the high end estimate of $13K.
After D3 paid for the VIP guide at DW, it won’t be the same going to the parks. You can’t beat being picked up at the Swan Reserve in a SUV and taken right to the back entrance of the GQ ride.
Re: Air Conditioners.
One of the astronomy club members installed a mini-split in his RV. Basically where the top bunk in his rig was, where the kids used to be (empty nesters). It is so efficient that it can be run w/o batteries or gen by about 800w on the roof. He is a desert biker, so it is a real pleasure to come back to base & soak in the cool.
Apparently a number of RV people now do this.
He liked it so much that he installed two more on his house. I have forgotten the brand name, these were designed from the manufacturer to run off solar, with an option to run off 230 V at night. He never bothered to install the 230 V line (just uses the swamp cooler then), and since he lives in rural Kern County the inspectors don’t care as long as it’s not hooked to the grid.
Busy day at the BOL. I must be prescient, that I had taken today off work. The internet provider technician and the central heating technician have just left, and I got off the phone with our insurance agent.
Our household insurance will cover the damage to electrical and electronic apparatus after the lightning strike on Saturday.
On the comms side, the connector at the demarcation was fried, as was our modem.
On the heating, the fail-safe solenoid on our gas supply was cooked – proper black and crispy.
Now waiting for the other shoe to drop, and see what other sensitive devices will soon fail or go flakey. The house network, TV and computers seem to be working as expected, but time will tell…
Now I have gas, time to get some soup on the cooker. I am ravenous… tidying up the garage while waiting for the technicians to arrive has given me an appetite!
“CSI” would be the biggie. The decision to pass on the original series arguably cost Michael Eisner his job.
It wasn’t Eisners growing hubris and the decision to buy ABC and ESPN?
__________
We’re waiting for food. Youorder by qr code on the table, but the website is broken. Only been officially open 4 days. There is a lot of evidence where things have been added, like lighting. One hour for one ride. Harry Potter is 150 minutes wait… not doing that.
N
For now, ESPN gIves Disney immense power when negotiating fees with the cable companies, particularly in NCAA football horny markets.
Disney also enjoyed the power of owning a major news outlet at ABC and the ability to manipulate Hearst coverage through the shared ownership of ESPN.
The Weatherman paying $80 billion for the Fox assets was the bigger acquisition mistake.
Considering what everyone’s been saying about Disney employees, and the criminal charges, I’m not sure that “back entrance” should be written within fifty words of “Disney”.
The ABC stuff might be true now, but back then they had no idea what to do with it.
Still at Epic. Trying to find an NA beer, coffee, or non coke product. Limiting choices May simplify your supply chain or your promotional deals but it sucks for the customer. I hate this place.
N
“Elon Musk Has Stepped Away From DOGE. He Still Has Plenty Going On”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-stepped-away-doge-182839356.html
“Elon Musk may be spending more time at Tesla—but there’s plenty going on at his other businesses, too.”
“The Financial Times earlier Monday reported that xAI, known in part for the AI chatbot Grok, seeks to raise $300 million at a company valuation of $113 billion in a deal that would let employees sell shares. (That’s in line with the blended valuations of xAI and the social network X the companies shared at the time of the announcement of their combination in March.)”
“The story follows a Semafor report late last month saying that another Musk business, Neuralink, had raised $600 million at a $9 billion valuation. Neither xAI nor Neuralink responded to Investopedia‘s requests for comment in time for publication. Musk’s other businesses include SpaceX, the rocket and satellite company.”
Musk has good people working for him. They get things done without him hovering over them.
“Disney to lay off several hundred employees globally”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disney-to-lay-off-several-hundred-employees-globally-193146536.html
“Disney’s latest round of cuts comes after the company reported strong second-quarter results last month and announced plans to build a new theme park and resort in Abu Dhabi, marking its first major expansion into the Middle East and seventh global resort.”
“Shares have surged over 20% since the report as investors praised the company’s improving financial performance and long-term growth strategy.”
This is not a dying company.
“181 Rulings to Stop Trump’s Agenda & the Man Behind Most of Them”
https://www.independentsentinel.com/181-rulings-to-stop-trumps-agenda-the-man-behind-most-of-them/
“So far, there have been 181 rulings in only four months by activist judges who think they have the right to stop the President’s agenda on every issue. The man behind most of them is Justice Robert’s leftist friend, the deranged Norm Eisen.”
“Over half of the President’s agenda has been halted temporarily.”
Eison had better be careful, you mess with the bull, you get the horns.
Sun Tzu has several rules about doing a small harm to the king.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
Alcohol is king at Universal.
Disney is still climbing the learning curve after botching Indy League Racing by failing to stock enough booze for the races.
IRL fans are pro aclcoholics.
This obvious lawfare could be stopped by Roberts. He keeps punting instead of reigning in activist judges. POTUS has broad power on immigration, tariffs, firing feds, the military etc. Judges want to eliminate that for their opinions ( the Dumbos even brag that it is part of their plan). Read the Constitution and existing precedents ya dooshes.
130 former judges filed a brief to grant immunity to that female doosh judge in WI. They should all be hunted down and harassed relentlessly. She needs jail time as a lesson.
xkcd: Check Engine
https://www.xkcd.com/3096/
Oh yeah, that would be incredibly worrisome. Solar events tend to last a long time.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3096:_Check_Engine
I bought a series of small video poker ebooks on Amazon ( and a paper copy for MrsAtoz ‘cause she gotta have paper, hi Mr. Lynn). The formatting is horrible on Kindle and even converted to epub for Books. Instead of returning them, I used Calibre to convert to pdf’s. The conversion kind of sucked, so I exported them and fixed the pdf’s with updf, my editor of choice. They looked pretty good, so I added them to my Calibre library as a duplicate, deleted the original pdf conversion, and merged my cleaned up copy to the kfx/epub file.
I bought a series of small video poker ebooks on Amazon ( and a paper copy for MrsAtoz ‘cause she gotta have paper, hi Mr. Lynn). The formatting is horrible on Kindle and even converted to epub for Books. Instead of returning them, I used Calibre to convert to pdf’s. The conversion kind of sucked, so I exported them and fixed the pdf’s with updf, my editor of choice. They looked pretty good, so I added them to my Calibre library as a duplicate, deleted the original pdf conversion, and merged my cleaned up copy to the kfx/epub file.
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2025/06/01
Wizard Of Id: Drought
https://www.gocomics.com/wizardofid/2025/05/31
So those are the moat monsters. I always wondered what was in the moat when I visited a castle.
“Thoughts on Ukraine’s drone strike against Russia’s strategic bombers”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/06/thoughts-on-ukraines-drone-strike.html
“We haven’t seen any independent reports about Ukraine’s drone strike yesterday morning against Russia’s strategic bomber force (Tupolev Tu-95‘s, Tu-22‘s and Tu-160‘s). Ukraine claims that 40 or more of these aircraft were hit by its drones; if so, that would mean that up to a third of them have been damaged or destroyed. (Since the factories that produced these aircraft, and components for them, have mostly been shut down or drastically reduced in capacity, a severely damaged aircraft will take so long to repair and restore that it might as well be written off as destroyed anyway.)”
“My first thought is that this attack is not a surprise. Anyone studying military history and current military technology could have (and in many cases did) predict such a strike against Russian assets. The only surprise to me is that it’s taken so long to do it. I thought it would come within the first couple of years of the war.”
“Second, this should be an extremely urgent wake-up call to the West. Drone flights over our air bases have been publicly reported for years; I’ll be very surprised indeed if some, if not most of them were operated by potential enemies such as China, Russia, Iran and others. Some may also have been operated by terrorist groups or drug cartels looking for potential high-profile targets. A strike similar to Ukraine’s could be launched against the USA at any time by almost anyone, because there will be no difficulty getting drones and their explosive payloads into this country and right up to the boundaries of the air bases concerned.”
“My third thought is that this might escalate the Russia-Ukraine war to a new level of viciousness.”
“Fourth, where did the containers holding those drones come from? ”
“Finally, this highlights how parlous is the international security situation at present. From Ukraine’s point of view, this strike was a no-brainer. Ukraine’s already losing on the battlefield, slowly but steadily.”
Yup, yup, yup, yup, and Yup.
Some people are calling this Russia’s Pearl Harbor.
BTW, Sun Tzu rules apply here also. Never do the king a small harm comes to mind as one rule.
“Biden Official Presidential Portrait”
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0NGKfRBncRKC9UdjZkDD1NAvrz8aGdc-cGW6dyjepKP931TbTHxeXMCw5u6RlNfxdjrMGE3cNZb6yJDmG51_E2Caz6rKjwa8-8OTxvoGMeebgDoZx1M0S5o16tcEw0GdT8ltu19Dx49xpwj0Hn2UAR1iVKv5eFxq8pYyWIUla7tg2VYq7qvQqXZnMm4k/s659/Meme%20-%20Biden%20presidential%20portrait.png
From:
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/06/memes-that-made-me-laugh-264.html
Beer Money. “The Fantastic Four” is up next to bomb.
Even if the movie was decent, Stuntman #12 aka Pedro Pascal, can’t put a lid on his antics.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lov2gPAHDrM
Re: alcohol is king… the NA beers sell for the same $ as alcohol. Even at $13 i d have bought several by now.
It’s a big missed opportunity.
Lots of that going on.
Wrt Disney in the M.E., I can’t see that working. Disney money won’t be on the line, they get all the profit and none of the expense from the overseas parks. There is a reputation risk, but that’s it. So why not try? No way the mgmt or labor will be Disney ready.
N
Some comic book nerds on YT are reporting the Silver Surfer is going back to male after backlash reviews.
The FF is my fav comic with the Thing my top comic book hero. I like the look, but he does not have a pansy voice. ”It’s clobbering time!“ better not be in that voice.
“S&W PERFORMANCE CENTER® MODEL M&P® R8”
https://www.smith-wesson.com/product/performance-center-model-m-p-r8
8 round cylinder .357 magnum. 5 inch barrel. N frame. Synthetic grips.
I am in love and I have a birthday coming up soon. I have been wondering what I was going to give myself for my birthday.
Okay I hate this place less now that I’ve had a couple of fake beers and some caffeine. What a what a freaking mess. And Super Mario World? wow nothing but a Non-Stop assault on the senses. 70db plus vs 50db elsewhere.
Rain just started too.
N
With the upcoming movie?
That would be quite a feat to pull off at this point.
The fans would want to see Doug Jones as the Surfer with Laurence Fishburne providing the voice.
Anything Stuntman #12 does off screen would be irrelevant.
“EchoStar blames FCC for missed interest payment”
https://thestreamable.com/echo-star-skips-interest-payment-fcc-bankruptcy
“The company’s decision not to make a scheduled interest payment could increase its chances of entering bankruptcy.”
“The parent company of DISH Network and Sling TV isn’t too happy with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) these days. That company is EchoStar, which is blaming the FCC for its decision to skip a scheduled interest payment while a review of its wireless business is being undertaken.”
More spectrum free ride for the stockholders of the CoDominium when they divide up the licenses in Bankruptcy.
EchoStar was set up as a token fourth competitor in the wireless market when T-Mobile absorbed Sprint.
Not that anyone expected EchoStar to survive as a wireless carrier.
And, once again, Blockbuster Video IP would be sold through an auction “on the courthouse steps”.
rain is starting to taper off but I think that’s just going to give us a chance to walk to the car.
N
BTW, ERCOT was making 22,000 MW using solar power and 20,000 MW using windmills most of today. At the peak of 76,000 MW, that was over half of the power demand in Texas.
https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards
Works great unless the wind stops or the sky gets cloudy.
Or the temps in Central Texas creep above 100.
“Only” 93 today in Austin.
Works great unless the wind stops or the sky gets cloudy.
Works great between the temperatures of 25 F to 105 F. Below that or above that, you have to start every gas turbine you have got and pray.
Home at the DVC hotel. LONG day. It’s a small park and only had a few rides but the lines are crazy long. Food is good but pretentious.
Technically, the attractions all seem to be top notch. The IP is weird or non-existent (for me anyway) and the crowd was super gay and super weird. ESPECIALLY in Marioworld. That could be spin off from rainbow week at Disney, or the nature of the Mario franchise. Lot of mario IP tattoos too.
Speaking of tattoos, there were more gallons of ink on display than booze at the Jack Daniels Distillery. Some good, most bad, and far too many were just trendy.
I think we’re at the other Universal parks tomorrow. Now I’m going to shower, ice my back, and go to bed.
n