First off, am I the only person out there who has always disliked the Walt Disney Corporation? My wife and I just got back from a two week vacation in Orlando, Florida where a significant portion of her family lives. Her sister is a successful gift shop manager in one of Walt Disney World’s four Orlando parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and MGM), and she got us into Epcot for free. Not surprisingly, I found Disney to be as preachy, arrogant, and vaguely threatening as ever. For instance, before they would let us see their cheap little aquarium in “The Living Seas” exhibit, they made us sit through a seven minute movie narrated by Kathleen Turner that explained to me how the seas were formed, how wondrous they are, and how it is my personal responsibility to make sure that they survive even though I live about 1,900 ft. above sea level on a Central Pennsylvanian mountainside (and of course, there was a “Finding Nemo” sculpture at the end). Goddammit, all I ever wanted to see was one freakin’ Manatee. And you should have seen their absolute sermon of a fireworks display. Message after message about world unity, brotherhood, economic progress, and taking care of the poor.
I mean, I’m a good liberal and all. And these were mostly all good messages from my personal political perspective. I guess I just resented having them jammed down my throat while I was just trying to enjoy a few overrated amusement park rides. I mean, I damn near walked out into the parking lot and re-registered Republican. It was all a little too Big Brotherish for me, I guess. But I’ve always found Disney’s movies to be a little preachy, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Incidentally, just in case anybody at Disney ever actually reads this (as if anybody other than Chas EVER reads this blog), my sister-in-law is a completely loyal employee… er, “cast member”… who was honestly appalled that I didn’t think Epcot was the greatest place on Earth. She would absolutely condemn this post if she could actually operate a computer.
OK, I’m done venting. Thanks for hearing me out. Now on to actual Pitt sports.
I actually posted to tell everyone that ESPN.com’s Bill Hodge released his latest ranking of the 2004 college football recruiting classes (as they currently stand) on the Official College Sports Network today. Because Pitt didn’t pull in as many recruits as some other schools did lately, we fell from #14 two weeks ago to #18 here. Elsewhere, Ohio State moved up a spot to #6, Penn State stuck at #8, and USC and Michigan stormed past LSU and Texas to claim the top two spots. Here’s the whole list.
No. 1 Southern California (Top JCs)
No. 2 Michigan
No. 3 LSU
No. 4 Oklahoma
No. 5 Texas
No. 6 Ohio State
No. 7 Miami-Florida
No. 8 Penn State
No. 9 Georgia
No. 10 Maryland
No. 11 Alabama
No. 12 Texas A&M
No. 13 Missouri
No. 14 Florida
No. 15 Tennessee
No. 16 UCLA (Top JCs)
No. 17 Florida State
No. 18 Pittsburgh
No. 19 Washington
No. 20 Texas Tech (Top JCs)
No. 21 Kansas State (Top JCs)
No. 22 Michigan State
No. 23 Boston College
No. 24 Nebraska
No. 25 Iowa
Tie No. 25 Oregon
Tie No. 25 Purdue
Is it just me, or has the once threateningly cool Snoop Doggy Dogg sold out both faster and to a greater extent than any rapper in history? Damn, Dogg, get off my TV. And no amount of schnizzle’s and izzle’s will ever make AOL popular in Long Beach, Watts, or Compton.
Hail to amusement parks just being amusement parks and not trying to save the world.
