my life

Happy new decade!

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Time for some 2020 vision. (Sorry.) There are many things I want to do this year, things that will set up the rest of the decade, MAJOR things. So there’s that!

And I also want to try and wean myself off a lot of social media. It’s not healthy. I don’t want followers online, just friends, and that’s the part that Twitter etc isn’t set up for. Twitter will recommend you stuff from complete strangers, stuff you don’t want to see and aren’t interested in, just to try and keep you engaged. Facebook does the same, hell, even WordPress does it. I find it really frustrating.

So I thought maybe I would spend some of today archiving some older Twitter jokes/posts that I actually want to keep on here, and maybe I guess make that whole account private at some point this month? S’like, I just want to use it to talk to people I already know, I’m not interested in terrible people’s thoughts on the UK election or the Star Wars Discourse. (My god, the Star Wars Discourse.) It’s not a healthy enviroment, social media, it just… isn’t.

Reddit is another problem in that it is unbelievably toxic and terrifying, but at least it has a forum system rather than a follow one and you can downvote the many, many offensive posts you’ll find. (Plus, the individual smaller forums such as the fanfiction one are very nice on the whole, it’s just, don’t click on anything to do with news or politics.)

So anyway! There’s that but honestly… 2019 was actually good mental-health wise, and that’s… scary. Also sort of survivors-guilt-y because so many people I know are suffering right now. Sigh. I hope 2020 will just be better for everyone and also the planet stops being on fire.

Some things I found while cleaning up

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It’s that time of year where ya give away a bunch of old stuff to make way for the new Christmas presents which arrived. I had a lot of boxes to get through it turns out. The highlights:

A very old (2001 era, I think) Arwen toy! She’s from Burger King I think, and looks less like Liv Tyler than anything else in the world could conceivably look less like Liv Tyler.

A mysterious unmarked floppy disk. I would love to put this in a computer and find out what’s on it! But I can’t because they don’t make computers with floppy disk drives anymore.

Swimming badge feat. Smiley whale

This very old choker from the ’90s era… which is now more or less back in fashion again, dang.

Charmander trapped in carbonite

A VERY VERY old glowstick bracelet! I had to throw it away because who knows what the hell those chemicals are doing in there.

A handful of Pokemon.. thingies? from 2001.

A pamphlet advertising a Star Wars exhibition. I think I must’ve got this while visiting France but when exactly I was there cannot say.

A big ol’ Pokemon advertisement from 2001.

!! I never thought I’d see this again! Back in the days when the kid’s show Diggit (part of GMTV I think) was a thing, my family won some signed stuff from the two presenters. Fearne went onto bigger things, Des didn’t. (Sorry Des.)

A knitted medal with my name on. WHAT WAS I FIRST AT?!?!

Another thing with my name on, this time a dolphin badge. I think this was probably one of those badges you get in gift shops where you have to pick out your own name. Kids love those things.

Some A4 posters of my favourite Jedi that graced my wall for a good few years.

And lastly, this appallingly unlucky Mr Mime.

Woodlice

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Every damn evening there’s woodlice on the tiles around the back door. I don’t know why they come in. I think they must see the lights of the house and mistake them for safety. They get the opposite, of course. When a woodlouse gets inside it pretty quickly dehydrates and dies.

I don’t like bugs of any kind but I try to put up with the woodlice constantly doing what’s worst for them. Some of them are lucky and I see them in time, crawling across the floor oblivious to the danger and oblivious to the disgust they’re causing. Then I get the dustpan and sweep them up with the many, many bodies of their fellow woodlice and put them outside.

Vintage Disneyworld ’96: MGM Studios

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…For back in the day, the park was actually named MGM Studios! Now, I believe it’s called Hollywood Studios. Let’s just settle for calling it “the Studios” from this point.

I look remarkably unimpressed here. God knows why, it’s not like there was a shortage of interesting stuff.

It seems like I was there just on time to see the Toy Story Parade! I kinda remember Buzz on the float repeating his stock phrases as he went by.

I have one better photo from the parade, too. Looks like a camera flash was caught in the metal thingy there.

There was more Toy Story stuff inside. I think this might have been the Art of Animation exhibit… or what became the Art of Animation exhibit?

In the same building, or possibly another building, who knows:

Back outside again we have a rather comical-looking old dinosaur:

What or who is this large green dino? Lemme google around to try and identify it. I think it’s an earlier version (?) of Gertie, who is the first result for “disney mgm studios green dinosaur.”

Ahhh, here’s some shots of the Honey I Shrunk The Kids play area, which was my FAVOURITE bit of the park.

You’ve probably noticed by now that I took like, two outfits to Disneyworld. I still have that Minnie Mouse hat somewhere! It’s turned grey now.

I loved this play area so much, I think I must’ve spent at least a couple hours here. I wonder if it’s still there?… nope, Galaxy’s Edge ate it. Oh well.

Well, that’s most of the good photos and this post is long enough!

You can repost the pictures of the attractions here, but please don’t repost any pictures with people in them!

Vintage Disneyworld ’96: Epcot

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So a while back I started posting some vintage Disneyworld photos, all the way from 1996, on here. And then I forgot all about it. But now I have remembered again! So seeing as I still have the photographs lying around on my disk drive, shall we take a look at ’90s Epcot?

You can repost the pictures of the attractions here (not that they’re very good), but please don’t repost any pictures with people in them!

Terrible quality photo but you get the idea.

Ah, Spaceship Earth. I remember… going inside it and there was a dark ride in there? Lemme check on Google. Aha! There WAS a ride in there! And I have almost entirely no memory of it.

Look who it is! Yep, at some point during that day we met Mickey. The thing that takes me aback about this photo is the lack of crowding around him.

Tigger was also there…

But it looks like I enjoyed meeting Winnie the Pooh most, if these photos are anything to go by.

I deemed meeting Pooh worthy of inclusion in my holiday scrapbook, even though I couldn’t quiiiite spell his name right.

Awww.

Now this photo… this I think might have been taken inside a restaurant called The Electric Umbrella. I remember it was technology-themed.

…But, looking up pictures of The Electric Umbrella, it looks a bit different (and lighter) so maybe it wasn’t in there? Perhaps it was on the Spaceship Earth ride? If anyone knows I would love to hear from you!

Let’s move onto the World Showcase!

Heeeere we are! I wonder what was in that bag I was holding? I think it was a plushie of Nala from The Lion King, but I’m not 100% sure.

Some landmarks:

Now I definitely remember IllumiNations being held on the lake here, but sadly I don’t have any photos of it as far as I know. (I imagine some of that is due to ’90s-era cameras being really bad at taking photos at night.)

Hey, person all in pink, d’ya mind not photobombing?

Here’s some shots of me and my family posing all round the World Showcase. Selfies hadn’t been invented yet so I guess the last one must’ve been taken by a kindly stranger.

And lastly, a lovely water feature.

Alas, I don’t know what part of Epcot that’s in, either.

Geez, this brought back memories. I can remember Epcot a bit more clearly than the other Disney parks for some reason. It must have left quite an impression on eight-year-old me.

BECAUSE I’M ONE OF THE IDIOTS WHO LIVES IN IT!! part 2: Potatoes!

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I planted some old shrivelled potatoes in various spots around the garden a month or two ago. I wasn’t really expecting much. I’m not very good at gardening, as you may have guessed, and some of them did turn green which means they’re poisonous and absolutely should not be eaten. However, I went digging in the second spot where I’d planted some of them, and what did I find?

Yes! Actual, presumably edible potatoes!

Honest to god it was a beautiful sight. So… I put them back in the ground again, where they will I assume sprout more ‘tato? Or that’s what the Internet tells me.

Meanwhile…

I planted the tomato plants around the back garden. Here’s one of them, I think it’s doing okay (it’s still green anyway)

Another one, not so much…

And the third one, has, uh, gone. Where it’s gone I couldn’t tell you. Maybe the epic rain we’ve had over the past few days killed it off completely? I have no idea.

As for the spring onions, things went very wrong with the spring onions. I suppose I should admit to it. Somehow it never occured to me to, you know, CHANGE THE WATER ON THE REGULAR and they rotted. I moved one one day and there was this appalling stench that stunk out the whole house. Kinda awkward. So here I go again:

Same vase, different onion. (And, um, different water, OBVIOUSLY.) So we’ll see how that goes. My gosh I am so pleased about the potatoes though.

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