A Spirited Valentine ...

[Pixieish]

I hope he has reported this to the appropriate authorities.

He won't. He's not the brightest bulb sometimes.

 

[matt9112]

Teachers, nurses, and a few of the other underappreciated, underpaid, but extremely valuable professions would disagree with you.

and in a competitive environment free of red tape and complex rules and "standards" hospitals and city's and schools could fight for the best talent thus raising wages for good teachers or nurses. (arguably some would make less if they were poor performers) unions equalize all at the expense of flexibility and competition. two things that drive modern business. this is why so many places are against charter schools because the wages and environment (types of kids) tend to be better and it's a brain drain effect on the normal public schools.

 

[GiveMeTheMusic]

He definitely does do this, just like he stops by hospitals in costume to visit sick kids, but it's only at Disneyland, not WDW. I read that he keeps one of the costumes with him in case circumstances arise that he wants to get into character.

Are you referring to Depp? Depp has only been in Disneyland in costume one time; to film a promo for Pirates 5 earlier this year. Despite urban legends to the contrary, that was the first time Depp had been dressed as Sparrow in a Disney theme park. He does often do hospital visits on his own in costume, but not the parks.

 

[Pixieish]

Star Wars and Indiana Jones are perfectly fine because Disney and Lucas have an established history together. Marvel on the other hand.... I know Marvel had a fanbase for a long time but many Disney Fans could have cared less about Marvel before December 2009 then suddenly it becomes the greatest thing ever.

A lot of that was because it was inaccessible except through cartoons and comic books, which aren't everyone's cup of tea. My husband and brother-in-law are both HUGE Marvel fans, and I just didn't get it because I had no interest in the cartoons (I prefer a much higher quality than what used to be on offer) or the comics. HOWEVER...once I saw them in live-action form with incredible special effects and humor tossed in? BAM!!! INSTAFAN!

 

[Pixieish]

The interesting thing is that PLAYING team sports is good for kids and teaches valuable life lessons.

Yet modern sports MARKETING does indeed bring the aura of gladatorial games to most team sports in the US

A deemphasis on professional sports would i think be a good thing from a cultural standpoint

I agree 100% with you there. It makes me sick that someone who plays a game makes money hand over fist while nurses (who save lives), and teachers (who educate the leaders of the future) salaries are stuck in the dark ages.

 

[JenniferS]

Ambitious and thoughtful urban planning... Toronto?!

Bah ha ha ha ha

Have you seen Toronto’s waterfront lately?
Nor has anyone else ... outside of those condo dwellers.

What a travesty! And this is coming from someone who works in the new home industry in the GTA.

 

[ford91exploder]

and in a competitive environment free of red tape and complex rules and "standards" hospitals and city's and schools could fight for the best talent thus raising wages for good teachers or nurses. (arguably some would make less if they were poor performers) unions equalize all at the expense of flexibility and competition. two things that drive modern business. this is why so many places are against charter schools because the wages and environment (types of kids) tend to be better and it's a brain drain effect on the normal public schools.

Actually its worse, Charter schools would not be a threat if public schools put out a quality product, Dont get me started on 'tenure' for public school teachers.

Schools need to clean house, schools need to be accoubtable and that means refocusing on the basics. If these can be successfully taught by a teacher in a one room schoolhouse in an indian or chinese village there is NO excuse for why it fails in the us other than lack of competence in the faculty and administrators.

Full Disclosure DW is a teacher and in her school there are teachers who cant spell or do simple arithmetic without a calculator.

She's constantly complaining about howinthehell did these people graduate college or get their state license.

One would think that basic literacy would be a requirement.

But then i think about about the ads on USAJOBS.GOV that state 'Only Unqualified Applicants May Apply'

And then we wonder why the quality of public employees tends to be at best average.

 

[Pixieish]

I agree, which is why I had originally qualified the idea with "right now" ... sure the Avatar sequels could change everything. Maybe. But wow, has Sam Worthington been in anything else since? Yikes

Actually, quite a few - Clash of the Titans, Wrath of the Titans, Titan and Call of Duty seem to me to be the most "name-recognizable" ones. I actually really enjoyed him in The Shack (not everyone's cup of tea, but a nice take on some things).

 

[Pixieish]

Don't get too carried away. I've had Comcast as my cable operator for years. There is no more evil corporation in America that is more focused on profits and less focused on customer satisfaction. Fortunately the corporate overlords in Philly seem to allow the Uni theme parks to run somewhat independently. For all of our sakes let's hope they never put someone from the cable side of the business in charge of theme parks.

And that's different from the classic fantasyland how?

Part of Comcast's problem is that they have wi-fi and high-definition cable offerings and a large portion of clientele that are technologically illiterate. My 70+year-old aunt posted on FB chewing Comcast a new butt because she couldn't get wi-fi working on the tablet her son bought her. Needless to say, her apartment wasn't set up for wi-fi. She didn't have a combo modem/router and she didn't have a separate router. Granted, her son (as a computer guru - seriously, he has ONE client and is a millionaire) should have made sure she could get up and running, but in her mind, it's all Comcast's fault. Another example is my 67-year-old mother - she claims that she isn't able to watch HD movies at all because her TV isn't HD. Um, wrong mum...your Smart TV is indeed HD. Your husband, who is a retired telephone guy, wired the house for cable with substandard cable, so even if they paid for the HD service, it wouldn't be worth it. HIS fault, not Comcast.

I've had Comcast for decades, and although I HATE their pricing, I've never had a single complaint about the service I get (internet, phone, cable). Customer service-wise, I've had ONE. We were late on a payment because of a car repair emergency and the rep I spoke with on the phone tried to convince me that they were holding our purchased movies for ransom until they received payment. I knew for a fact it was a flat out lie and got the issue fixed when I called back and spoke to someone else, as well as reported the experience I had.

 

[Pixieish]

Saw this in WSJ. Sorry it's so wrinkled, but I cannot find it on the internet:View attachment 213753 View attachment 213754
I'm not sure if someone has posted this.

It would be extremely helpful if the stuff they had on offer under OnDemand was worth watching. Most of the time, it's drivel I don't want my kids watching because it annoys the heck out of me. If they showed more of the old shorts and any of the movies on the regular, I'd be thrilled, but they don't. Once in a blue moon, Disney Family Movies has a gem or two on it, but it's few and far between.

 

[Pixieish]

And while we can't post any other video like this. It really makes me hate searching up anything in the YouTube search engine for any Disney character fearing most will be these kind of videos,

You Tube desperately needs to enforce ratings for videos, and even the kids' youtube is full of x-rated cartoons. Even blocking users doesn't carry over to the apps. Google can pull this off, they just don't want to.

 

[GoofGoof]

Part of Comcast's problem is that they have wi-fi and high-definition cable offerings and a large portion of clientele that are technologically illiterate. My 70+year-old aunt posted on FB chewing Comcast a new butt because she couldn't get wi-fi working on the tablet her son bought her. Needless to say, her apartment wasn't set up for wi-fi. She didn't have a combo modem/router and she didn't have a separate router. Granted, her son (as a computer guru - seriously, he has ONE client and is a millionaire) should have made sure she could get up and running, but in her mind, it's all Comcast's fault. Another example is my 67-year-old mother - she claims that she isn't able to watch HD movies at all because her TV isn't HD. Um, wrong mum...your Smart TV is indeed HD. Your husband, who is a retired telephone guy, wired the house for cable with substandard cable, so even if they paid for the HD service, it wouldn't be worth it. HIS fault, not Comcast.

I've had Comcast for decades, and although I HATE their pricing, I've never had a single complaint about the service I get (internet, phone, cable). Customer service-wise, I've had ONE. We were late on a payment because of a car repair emergency and the rep I spoke with on the phone tried to convince me that they were holding our purchased movies for ransom until they received payment. I knew for a fact it was a flat out lie and got the issue fixed when I called back and spoke to someone else, as well as reported the experience I had.

Customer service there is garbage. They are supposed to be working to make it better but I haven’t seen it. Standard call center where when the operator can’t figure out your issue they tell you they are resetting something and to wait 30 mins and call back if it doesn’t start working. They know when you call back you will get another operator on the phone so not their problem. I spent hours on the phone trying to get my X1 boxes to work. It took 3 trips to a local Comcast store and at least 4 different days calling before I got it mostly working. Then they tried to bill me for the technician coming to my house to install the equipment which never happened. They are still billing me for 3 cable boxes that I no longer have and over they phone told me I had to go to the local store to straighten it out. That was only after finding a phone number in an online forum for a customer service team that wasn’t just calling the 800 number. My last trip to the store I spent 2.5 hours waiting. I haven’t had a free day to dedicate to getting that fixed. They are going to owe me 6months of back credits by the time I get around to it.

 

[Pixieish]

Probably because it counts as "parody".
That doesn't stop the pseudo lawyers who actively hunt down videos of random contents and mass submit violations and DCMAs (even if they are not even the lawyers contracted by the owners of the content).



I do not see the problem. Kids should have the google default browser filter to maximum.
That should block almost 99% of the BAD XXX rated sites, parodies, etc..

Unsure if that works well with youtube..

YouTube lacks any REAL ability to filter anything. They need to add the capability for video-makers to add ratings and for users to report videos as being falsely rated. Blocking users on your account doesn't carry over to the apps, and even the kids' version of the app is FULL of xxx-rated cartoons. Google needs to address these things before they have a major lawsuit on their hands...because with the way things are today, it's just a matter of time before that happens.

 

[Pixieish]

Customer service there is garbage. They are supposed to be working to make it better but I haven’t seen it. Standard call center where when the operator can’t figure out your issue they tell you they are resetting something and to wait 30 mins and call back if it doesn’t start working. They know when you call back you will get another operator on the phone so not their problem. I spent hours on the phone trying to get my X1 boxes to work. It took 3 trips to a local Comcast store and at least 4 different days calling before I got it mostly working. Then they tried to bill me for the technician coming to my house to install the equipment which never happened. They are still billing me for 3 cable boxes that I no longer have and over they phone told me I had to go to the local store to straighten it out. That was only after finding a phone number in an online forum for a customer service team that wasn’t just calling the 800 number. My last trip to the store I spent 2.5 hours waiting. I haven’t had a free day to dedicate to getting that fixed. They are going to owe me 6months of back credits by the time I get around to it.

OMG. I'm beginning to think that we just lucked out and get directed to a good call-center and storefront where we are.

 

[GoofGoof]

OMG. I'm beginning to think that we just lucked out and get directed to a good call-center and storefront where we are.

Probably. I had the old boxes for years without any issues. When one broke they just swapped it for a new one. I didn’t even ask for the new equipment though I do love the multi-room DVR and the kids like playing with the voice remote, although I’m burning through batteries

 

[Pixieish]

Probably. I had the old boxes for years without any issues. When one broke they just swapped it for a new one. I didn’t even ask for the new equipment though I do love the multi-room DVR and the kids like playing with the voice remote, although I’m burning through batteries

90% of the time for us if there is a problem with service, it's because someone hit a pole on our 12-mile-long street that people treat like a highway even though we're in a 30mph zone. I have been thinking about asking them for a wi-fi booster though...there's one room where our kids play that has horrible connection.

Oh...and I just remembered the ONE other time I did have an issue, but it was a subcontractor, so not really Comcast's fault anyway. (Bad installation of wiring because of miscommunication about needed equipment with Best-buy.)

 

[Pixieish]

That might be more about recent concerns about people reaching out and interfering with the animatronics or scenery, in which case being trackless probably wouldn't make a difference.

But check out the Hundred Acres scene in this video (starts at 0:16):



The scenery is very close to the track, showing that it's at least possible, even if the lawyers/management are more cautious...

If I were designing an attraction, people touching anything would be a HUGE factor in design. Humans are, by and large, inherently stupid and break things/mess them up consistently. Just ask my husband who somehow cannot even look at my truck without denting/scratching it.

 

[Pixieish]

I took my 5 year old on Anaheim's version (where you sit single file) at about 11pm one night pitch dark and they made her sit in the front of the log. She was scarred for life by the experience. Took about ten years before she would ride the one in Florida because it was so traumatic. Yes, we're bad parents.

We're bad parents too - took our 5-year-old on TOT in WDW. He's on the autism spectrum and severely speech delayed (he understands everything you say though). The reason we decided to take him on is because he's the thrill seeker of our 2 sons (our 11-year-old is Sacredy McPeePants, to quote someone on here). He didn't make a sound during the ride (unusual for him!), and turned about 6 shades of white...so I was really afraid we made the wrong choice...

Then afterwards, he was ALL smiles and when we asked if he liked it, he gave a big thumbs up!

 

[Sonconato]

It would be extremely helpful if the stuff they had on offer under OnDemand was worth watching. Most of the time, it's drivel I don't want my kids watching because it annoys the heck out of me. If they showed more of the old shorts and any of the movies on the regular, I'd be thrilled, but they don't. Once in a blue moon, Disney Family Movies has a gem or two on it, but it's few and far between.

I definitely agree. I miss the old stuff.

 

[bcoachable]

and in a competitive environment free of red tape and complex rules and "standards" hospitals and city's and schools could fight for the best talent thus raising wages for good teachers or nurses. (arguably some would make less if they were poor performers) unions equalize all at the expense of flexibility and competition. two things that drive modern business. this is why so many places are against charter schools because the wages and environment (types of kids) tend to be better and it's a brain drain effect on the normal public schools.

In your scenario, how would you insure the poorest of the poor could afford a good education in our country?