orlando is a sprawling megalololopolis, and it is unsane how long it takes to get anywhere, and how much time people spend driving through it (and, apparently, shopping along the way).
this from someone who grew up in colorado springs! (though admittedly, i have since been spoiled by bloomington, and i’m sure i will have similar reactions next week when i venture into the american west)

still, things jump out at me, and not just the alligators.

today i went to a big outdoors store that has a fishtank that’s big enough that you can practice your casting technique in it, and interested onlookers can peer through the side to watch the fly skitter along past the fish, who are no longer interested in such distractions.

yesterday i was staring out the window as we drove around, and we passed a walgreen’s with a sign that said “Sweatpants – 2 for $10” (or something like that), and i originally parsed the “S” as a “5,” which led me to interpret the phrase as “5 vealpants”, until i was like “what the flip are vealpants?!” and i read it a little more closely, and laughed pretty hard.

they have “mcdonald’s bistro” here, which is apparently what happens when mcdonald’s ventures into “fast casual” but tries to keep their brandname intact, and i just don’t know what i think about that… i mean, i guess it’s better than venturing into mexican and calling themselves chipotle because then at least we can’t claim confusion about where our money’s going, but it still registers as “odd” in my brain…

two days ago at costco i was given the demo on an “interactive” digital piano. it taught me how to play mary had a little lamb, and would transcribe the notes i played, and had some kind of transposition feature that i couldn’t figure out. the coolest thing, though, was that there were these black and white buttons across the bottom of the whole thing, and when i pushed them, sounds came out! there seemed to be some logic to the arrangement of the buttons, and i bet if i spent more time at it i could figure out how to make it sound pretty nice…

yeesh.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 17th, 2005 at 7:28 pm and is filed under fluff, things i do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.