When last I spoke to you, I showed you some crazy crap I found at a flea market. Well, in the month or so since then I've spent some time getting some more crazy crap through the internet's flea market aka eBay.
Vintage Disneyland Tickets!
Oh, baby. I've always wanted a set of old ride tickets from Disneyland despite never actually going to the park, nor being born before they were discontinued during the early 80s.
You see, back in the days before paying $100 a day to get into Disneyland to wait on as many lines as possible, rides required tickets that had to be bought separately. A tickets were cheap and were mostly the tame rides like those horse drawn cars in Main Street or the Carousel while the more expensive E tickets gave you access to the thrill rides like Space Mountain and such. The really lame stuff didn't need tickets at all. (I don't care if being sponsored by Monsanto meant it was free, you're not getting me interested in the Bathroom of The Future)
Most often you bought ticket books to get some kind of value. In 1967, these books cost $4.50 (from a value of $8.05 if all 15 tickets in the book were bought separately). Of course, these were child tickets, so they were slightly cheaper. That $8.05 price would be worth $56.34 in today's dollars. Quite a steal, especially since a one-day ticket to Disneyland for a child today comes to $90. Not even kidding about that.
Since tickets were sold from the park's opening to 1955 to 1983ish, scores of unused tickets can be found on eBay for little more than the price you see on the ticket. But like anything stupidly collectible, the older and more complete a ticket book, the more valuable it is. These specific books come from 1967, and the one on the bottom only has the main entrance ticket and a single D ticket missing. That's almost unheard of among the 30 people that take this seriously. These set me back around forty bucks, also unheard of.
Here's a comparison of the E tickets from both books. The above one is from May 1967 and the bottom one from October. There's an interesting omission from the October book: The Rainbow Ridge Pack Mules. Odd considering that the pack mules wouldn't be removed until 1973.
Yes folks, once upon a time Frontierland was the big draw of Disneyland and before Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain were built and took most of its land, there were several rides to guide you through the town known as Rainbow Ridge. You could go through by stagecoach, by Conestoga wagon, and through a train ride that was not unlike the Jungle Cruise with its own brand of cheesiness. But for a time you could ride actual mules in the park. Hey, keeping mules was pricey and there were still laws on the books barring guests from riding cast members around. It's due to this and the increasing weight of Disneyland guests are my guesses to why the ride is long gone.
Finally, here's an interesting comparison of the C tickets, again the top being from May and the bottom from October. No clue as to why half of Fantasyland and the mine train disappeared between those five months. At least the war canoes could be chalked up to being seasonal.
New Old Kool-Aid Flavors!
You all remembered my entry about Sharkleberry Finn from a few months past, yes? Well, the Kool-Aid gods have answered my prayers and re-released a few more of the character-based flavors! Purplesaurus Rex, Rock-A-Dile Red, Pink Swimmingo and my all time favorite Great Bluedini have returned to store shelves! I was able to snag 10 packs each of the three flavors you see above for about eighteen bucks total. Might seem like a lot, but since these flavors have yet to reach my part of the country it's well worth it.
Once I'm able to have access to the house's only clear pitcher, I'll write up a taste test like I did for Sharkleberry and report back here.
WiiU!
Well, this one was an in-store purchase, but a thing I got all the same! After years of debating myself and a few interesting demos, I finally decided to take the plunge into next gen gaming! So what if this was a $350 Mario Kart machine, the future is now and Mario Kart looks as awesome as it ever did.
Seriously, pictures and videos don't do this game justice, but in my mind Mario Kart 8 is the best one I've played since the 64 version. Sure, I liked the original and Double Dash and Wii enough (never really got into the handheld games in the series), but this one is purty.
The graphics are incredible, the handling of the karts are great (although being out of the MK loop for a while, the gliding and anti-gravity stuff took some getting used to), and hey, the AI looks like it's only KIND OF cheating! Plus there's 30 different characters, including all 7 Koopalings! You see Iggy above but my heart will always belong to Lemmy.
You could also play as your Mii, too. Nintendo expected to play with weird copies of ourselves but then people got creative like with Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force:
And even President Obama can get into the race.
And your standard Hitler and Jesus Miis, but I don't have pics of those. Yet.
This is also a good time to remind you that while Mario Kart 64 was a great game, the graphics have not aged well.
See, here's MK 64's version of Royal Raceway:
And here's MK8's:
What a difference nearly 20 years makes. Yes, Mario Kart 64 came out in 1996 and don't you feel old now?
OFFICIAL CERTIFICATION!
Google Maps was clever this year. Their April Fool's prank was a Pokemon hunt. Through Google Maps you had to search the entire world for 150 different Pokemon in a few days and then they would offer you a job to be their official Pokemon Master. Thanks through searching through Reddit I was able to snag all 150 within a few hours.
But after doing that (twice!), it turns out that Google had another trick up its sleeve: Mew. Unlike all the other Pokemon which had a set location, Mew was different for every user, and changed location whenever somebody found it. All we knew was that it was somewhere in the Amazon...and that's it. Alas, I never found it and nearly tossed my phone in rage over this.
But Google is not a malevolent corporation, no sir. It turns out that as long as you found all 159, you won. About a month later I was sent a survey for a special prize. And a month after that I got said prize in the mail:
BUSINESS CARDS, BITCHES! Yep, I'm official. I guess all those years of playing and training finally paid off
I know that look on your face, you're jealous.
FREE BOOK!
If you're not listening to Marc Maron's WTF Podcast or his show on IFC "Maron," you're truly missing out. The podcast is especially fascinating if you're into all things comedy and anything pertaining to the world of stand-up.
Marc's show, kinda based on the podcast and his own life, is equally as good. It started out as Louie starring a more bitter comedian but the second season finally has him branch out into its own, bitterly hilarious awkward thing.
But the main reason why I ended up with a free copy of his latest book was through good ol Twitter. During an episode about Marc having an awkward day with Ray Romano, the show's twitter feed started its weekly contest. Tell them what a day with yourself with Marc would be like and you'd win a free copy of the book.
Seeing the picture above it's easy to deduce that I was the winner that week. I couldn't believe it, stuff like this never happened to me before. An actual contest? Me? Really? Winning?
Yes. Don't give up hope, kids someday this good fortune might happen to you.
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