pilot pope

I like this. I like to imagine tiny pontiffs delivering bread and wine to my seat, then pausing to wash my feet with holy water in exchange for my placing a few pence in the poor box.

I also like how Ryanair has issued a statement claiming that they are better than God.

who would win

in a fight between Paul Hogan and Hulk Hogan?

the ny times says it best

I had intended to expand my last post, describing our wonderful NY adventure in detail, but today’s New York Times beat me to it. In a word, our New York vacation was cheesy – and all the better for it.

The article does a great job of describing fun, yet cheesy places to go in New York. And it describes almost all of the attractions we visited last weekend…

On Friday night we visited Mars 2112 in Times Square for dinner where we gladly parted with $2 a piece for a “ride to mars.” The ride was a motion simulator with graphics that pale in comparison to any video game designed in the last twenty years. It was nearly closing time when we arrived so most of the “aliens” had gone home, but our waitress was sufficiently weird and they were still willing to help us part with a large sum of money in exchange for their mediocre space food.

Saturday was the day I’d truly been looking forward to. As the article says,

But at its best, cheesiness can make for a darn good time. The ultimate example is a trip to Coney Island for a walk along the Boardwalk, a trip to the freak show and a ride on the clackety Cyclone roller-coaster.

That’s exactly what we did, in that exact order, with a stop at the aquarium to begin the day.

The aquarium was crowded but interesting, especially the jellyfish exhibits and the walruses. After that we strolled the Boardwalk and headed over to the sideshow, which was TOTALLY WORTH IT. We saw, in no particular order, a girl swallow swords and survive inside a wooden box skewered with dozens of steel blades, a scarier girl in a corset dance with a snake and sit in an electric chair, a man put pieces of metal into his nose using a power drill, a tattooed lady breath fire, and Jesus the wolfman do a tightrope act. My only regret is not dishing out the extra cash to see the Coney Island Mummy. That, and I didn’t get a t-shirt.

Finally we went to ride the Cyclone. It’s on most of the lists of top roller coasters and we were pretty excited about riding it. Except no one ever told me exactly how much it would hurt. I have the bruises to prove it. It was harshest coaster I’ve ever been on and I’ve ridden all of the coasters here many times.

Saturday night found us drinking beers from boot mugs and eating a few slices of NY pizza at a place called Two Boots in Park Slope. A cheesy end to a cheesy day.

Sunday wasn’t cheesy at all, unless you count the B movies we watched on the bus ride home. (Has anyone else seen The Core?) Or, if you count our trip to the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co., but that’s just completely awesome. Our last stop in NY had been the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and a delicious BBQ lunch at a nondescript restaurant, which seemed like reasonable tourist activities.

Now we are left to plan our next NY vacation. Sadly, I’ve already been to most of the other cheesy places listed in the article (Little Italy, Culture Club, resisted the carriage ride in Central Park). It might take a bit more work to set a new itinerary. Suggestions?

of jellyfish and boot mugs

Russell and I spent last weekend in New York with a friend of mine from high school who was gracious enough to put us up (and put up with us) for the weekend.

I had two goals for the trip: 1) Ride the Coney Island Cyclone, 2) See the Coney Island Sideshow. These had to be done on this trip because of the impending demolition of the Astroland amusement park and re-design of the Coney Island area.

Mission Accomplished.

Photo & Header Photo by K. Martinelli