Sunday, August 02, 2009

How to be an asshole at Disneyland

It takes some talent to be an asshole by accident. I've now done it twice...at Disneyland no less. There's just something about annoying young couples that brings out the worst in me

In my 4th year in Japan -- about 14 years ago -- me and an old girlfriend decided to go to Disneyland. The lineup for Splash Mountain was huge -- almost 90 minutes. And for the entire time we had a rather annoying couple behind us. Actually, the girl wasn't annoying -- just her date. He spent most of the time talking about where she should point her face so they could get a nice "kinen shashin" (記念写真) -- a commemorative photo of their date. So I was secretly thrilled when I saw the photos. I never would have bought this if not for the fact that I found it hilarious.



Check out how he made sure he had his arm around her (which is not easy to do on that drop off!) At least I was nice enough not to block her face out.

But then a few weeks ago, one of my oldest friends, Mike Kurucz, came to visit from Port Alberni. He wanted to see what Disneyland would sound like with everything in Japanese, so away we went. And once again we got a hopeful young couple behind us...and again the talk about the kinen photo. Luckily, being an asshole at Disneyland is something shared by all Canadians, and so we both managed to pretty much ruin the photo hopes of the guy behind us.



Interestingly, I just realized that my receding hairline was the same then as it is now. While it sucked having that hairline when I was young -- at least it's not getting much worse. Bonus!

And if you're wondering what Disney sounds like in Japanese, here's a clip from the electric parade. Who's kidding who, even at 44, I still love Disneyland!