You must be just around the bend

[austin_dern]

And how about a handful of more Chessington World of Aventures pictures?

Also in the Mexicana area, the Rattlesnake wild mouse roller coaster. Shuttered the day we went, as a result of the Alton Towers crash. It may be small --- apparently only fifty feet tall --- but the strong theming makes us particularly regret being unable to ride it.

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From The Penguins of Madagascar stage show: the evil scientist whats-is-name has revealed himself to be an octopus, a neat transmutation trick done on stage by having the bundled-up costume fall apart to reveal tentacles. He's turned the lead penguin, whats-is-name, into a monster using an evil ray beam. This trick too is done on stage: the right wing bursts open to an inflatable claw, and while people are stunned by this, stage minions velcro googly-eyes, a long tongue, and those green sores onto the main costume. It's very effective.

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Animatronic organ-player in the very dark launch station for the Vampire roller coaster.

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View of the Sea Lion Square from the park. Center left: sea lion.

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Since it is Thursday night or Friday morning, yes, I do want to remind folks of my humor blog and its contents. I have a humor blog. Here's the past week's contents. Thank you.

• From The Dawn Of Beeps, last week's major piece, thinking about the sound.
• Molly McGee At A Roller Coaster, an amusement-park based episode of a classic old-time radio program.
• Statistics Saturday: Do I Order A Grilled Cheese? based on what I actually do at restaurants.
• Statistics Saturday on a Monday-ish, for July, about how I discovered to use clickbait for my benefit.
• MiSTed: Brad Guth, Venus for Dummies, Part 1 of 3, making fun of a forgotten guy from sci.space.history.
• MiSTed: Brad Guth, Venus for Dummies, Part 2 of 3 (go ahead, guess)
• MiSTed: Brad Guth, Venus for Dummies, Part 3 of 3 (wrapping it up)
• Things I Learned From 1950s Science Fiction, based on listening to its representation in old-time radio anyway.

Trivia: Pope Gregory XII had to pay 12,000 florins to Antonio di Giovanni Roberti in order to redeem the papal tiara in April 1409. Source: Gold and Spices: The Rise of Commerce in the Middle Ages, Jean Favier.

Currently Reading: Love Conquers All, Robert Benchley.

PS: Lines That Cross Infinitely Many Times, on the mathematics blog, where I try to think of something I can call lines that cross repeatedly without being the same line. Do I succeed? You be the judge.

Comments

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Love them pix !

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Glad you do! I like the posting of them now that I've got a habit of doing them.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

Those organ pipes are fantastic!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Aren't they, though? The organist is neat too, but I don't think I was able to get a useful movie of how it looks in action.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Ahh, so that's what you meant by the tentacle reveal! Clever.

I wonder if I could be a penguin. Or, indeed, if they might have any place for a bunny.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is one of those things best seen in picture, or better video. But I wasn't taking videos and I don't know how to upload them to LiveJournal anyway.

I imagine you could pass as a penguin if you really needed to.

Now I wonder how hard it'd be to work the tentacle-trick into a fur suit. It would surely be the wonder of the parade at any con. Of course you could only really do it the one time (per show), but that would be enough.