Category: Miscellaneous

House on the Rock, Wisconsin Dells, and cheese.

Within a short four hour drive is a place called House on the Rock. Folks have been telling me about it for the past two decades, but I knew nothing about it. I have now visited it, and think I still know nothing about it.

A short drive from there is Wisconsin Dells, home of endless tourist traps such as Top Secret, Ghost Outpost, Haunted Mansion and Lost Temple. Some higher end attractions such as Wizard Quest (in a new location) and Ripley’s Believe it or Not make this a great way to spend part of a day.

I have about 1900 photos from House on the Rock I need to sort then share, and hundreds more from spots in the Dells.

What a short, strange trip it was. And on the drive home, we found Hook’s Cheese Company where they actually make cheese, and had a small refrigerator of their cheeses for sale.

I was fooled by the House on the Rock, but some quick research when I got back home explained a lot of what I saw. And now I am even more impressed.

More to come…

Haunted Mansion product placement

Haunted Mansion, not to be confused with The Haunted Mansion (2003), opened in theaters today. Since most of the movie is set in the mansion, product placement was not as easy to do. Watch for verbal references to:

  • Zillow – there really is a Zillow listing for this mansion, a very clever movie tie in.
  • Amazon – though perhaps just a joke…
  • CVS – This one was blatant. The medium brings out a notepad and says that she got it at CVS.
  • COSTCO – I forget where this was mentioned.
  • Burger King – a Burger King fry bag is passed around in a car, and references are made to its contents.

What others did you notice? Please leave a comment and I will update the list.

How to completely solve DisFan social media drama

There has always been, and I expect will always be, people who just like to complain, argue and start fights. Distancing yourself from those types of people may make your life much better — unless, of course, you are one of those people.

Online bickering is nothing new. It existed in the 1970s/1980s on bulletin board systems. It existed later on text-based information networks such as CompServer, GEnie, and Delphi. It existed on graphical networks such as AOL, MSN, PC-Link, etc.

It existed on the Internet on newsgroups, then later web message boards, and the trend continues with social networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Any platform that allows user responses, such as video comments on YouTube, will have this.

Watching the latest drama unfold about certain YouTube video posters just reminds me of the same type of drama in the usenet groups from almost thirty years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

YouTube has its own level of drama, with nitpickers nitpicking Disneyland video bloggers, and other nitpickers nitpicking Walt Disney World video bloggers. Meanwhile, over on Twitter, several sites are constantly bashed and accused of being click-bait sites. One of them even has a legacy dating back to the early years of Disney fan podcasting, so you’d think that would give them some leeway in later generations of media. I guess not.

If you are caught up in the griping about Disneyland YouTubers right now, posting your thoughts in other videos, REDDIT threads and elsewhere, try this simple tip to improve your life:

Don’t watch them, and unsubscribe if you are subscribed.

It’s a simple as that. Let people who enjoy the content enjoy it, and move on with your life. Nothing is gained by griping about something you don’t like. Only other gripers care. The rest of us just move on and enjoy life.

Try it sometime.

It works great!