Happy birthday, Augie

Hope you have a good one.

Hanna discovers Fetch

After watching her brother do it for more than a week now, Hanna has finally figured out the game of Fetch, and was quite happy to play it with me this morning before work.

When I got home, they both wanted to play. These are some odd cats.

Pirates of the Caribbean ride to get facelift

According to the newest Disneyland Podcast, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride will be getting a facelift this year, including a new digitally restored soundtrack, Jack Sparrow, Barbosa and Davey Jones figures from the movies added to the set and their musical themes added to the ride score.

Since moving to California, I’ve probably gone on the ride 50+ times (it’s slightly different than the Disneyworld one), so I’m a little nervous about this, but they’re saying Jack Sparrow, for instance, will just be inserted into the existing scenes instead of being made part of new ones which would displace some of the classics. (The pirates pulling the treasure up the final climb of the ride will be going away, though.) The revamp was apparently planned before the first movie was released, just to modernize the classic.

I had no idea that one of the ships on the ride was called the Wicked Wench. Neat.

NapraPAC: Not a magical cure

Much like the pain is now more than the NapraPAC drug combo can handle, sometimes I still get heartburn stemming from all the anti-inflammatories I dump in my gut all day long nowadays. Mmmm, tasty way to wake up in the middle of the night.

But while I’m up … great episodes of Boston Legal and Supernatural this week, no?

Reading across Topaz Elementary, follow-up

I just got back from Topaz Elementary School, where I read Robert Munsch’s Show and Tell for Mrs. Guiterrez‘s fourth grade class for Read Across America Day.

This went tons better than Career Day at Hesperia High School last year: In addition to enjoying the book and being a great audience (even the few who didn’t like the book were exceptionally well-behaved), the fourth graders absolutely grilled me about being a reporter.

I think there might be a Hesperia Star column in next week’s paper about this, so I’ll save the details for then, but I will note that the kids were absolutely flabbergasted that I wasn’t rich.

Please direct similar sentiments to Editor Peter Day and Publisher Stephan Wingert.