Space Mountain May Be The Oldest Ride In The Park ...

.... but it's still got the longest line! Whoooooooo!

Happy Memorial Day.

Well today wraps up a wild five days of total insanity. What could cause such utter exhaustion? You guessed it - a long weekend with the parents.

The highlight of the last few days was definitely Saturday's trip to Disneyland. I'd never been before, only to Disneyworld in Florida, and it was cool to go on some of the classic rides like Pirates of the Carribean, the Haunted Mansion, and the Jungle Cruise, plus some new ones like Indiana Jones, which was pretty freakin' awesome. But man, those old-school rides really are amazing, even after I've been on 'em multiple times at this point. I mean, the Haunted Mansion to me really falls into the category of art. The detail is just amazing, and the floating, transparent ghosts flying and dancing every which way still makes me wonder "how do they do that?" Same goes for Pirates, which is just too sweeet, a truly amazing ride.

But yeah, very tiring few days, as Thursday and Friday I had two long days at Universal, finishing out my week working at the LA Screenings there. While it was a week of long hot days, it was a fun experience. They really put us to work at times, whether it was moving boxes around or running carnival games (yes, finally my college education comes in handy!), but it was kind of a good bonding experience, and I got to get a caricature drawn of me, got my fortune told, got some cool pictures, saw a lot of movie sets at Universal (including Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives and a really cool crash site set from the upcoming War of the Worlds), and of course got to work with some great people. Sure there were long stretches without much to do but sweat in the glaring sun, and yes we were treated to the same BBQ food for six days straight (free, yes, but I couldn't even look at the catfish after day three ...), but overall it was a very positive experiecnce. So anyways, yeah, between working at Universal, the Tonight Show (featuring Matt Lauer, Carrie from Americon Idol, and Nikka Costa, who rocked!) and meeting up with my parents for food, shopping, and having them analyze every aspect of my new apartment, it was a very long and tiring few days. Since I know you're interested, my various shopping trips the last few days yielded such items as an area rug for my apt., a new shower head, a plant that really creeps me out for some reason, and some pretty cool vintage posters that I got at Disneyland. Riveting stuff, I know. (Hey with 24 and Lost done for the season I gotta fill up space somehow ...).

I also interviewed for another assignment - this one over at Universal in the Studios Development dept. Hopefully it comes through, should find out this week. It would definitely be a great opportunity to be around writers, producers, and execs so if I were selected for the assignment I'd be a very happy man. But since the Primetime Programming assignment did not come through, this one is my last chance to work in development or programming via the NBC page program for a while. No pressure or anything.

This week is probably going to be a little slow, which is definitely a good thing. But somewhow I got stuck with ticketbox duty tommorow, so I'm working from 7:30 am to 5. That start time is killin' me just thinking about it, so I'll save further musings for another time, since if I don't get some quality sleep I am going to really be screwed come tommorow morning.

Oh hell, who am I kidding. I am pretty much guaranteed to be cursing my alarm clock and clutching my pillow while prying my eyes open when 6 am comes around. The only thing that makes me feel any better is to remember that I have it better than my friend Bradd, who was telling me yesterday that his new job is going to rquire him to arrive to work each day by 5 am. Now THAT would make me cry.

Oh, and my first statement, as was oft said by Ric Flair, and written mostly for my own amusement, is, alas, a lie. Space Mountain, at least the one here in California, is temporarily closed for renovations. So, yeah, um, nobody's really in line for it.