Day 683: Perfect Score

As I may have mentioned in a blog post a few weeks ago, I seriously enjoy taking Walt Disney World quizzes simply because I know I'll get a perfect score (although sometimes I'll mess up like one answer because I was being ridiculous and not reading the whole thing). Regardless, there are currently a bunch of Disney World quizzes out on Disney Insider, and of course I took them. So why don't you take them too? 

Magic Kingdom!

Of all the quizzes, I feel like this was the easiest of them. Now, that either means that it was indeed the easy one or I actually know a ridiculous amount about Magic Kingdom. Maybe it's a combination of both. Either way, these questions were pretty simply to figure out, unless you're not constantly going to Magic Kingdom like I am. I wonder what would happen if I had one of my best friends take the quiz...???

Epcot!

This quiz was actually really good considering the fact that sometimes the Disney made quizzes are the easier ones. They have to make them sort of easier because there are a lot of people out there, and not everyone is going to be as fluent in Disney information as I am. Meaning that if they made it too hard, a ton of people would end up with scores of like 1 or two out of ten. Me? Yeah...perfect scores all around. The end of the description got me though...don't throw Promise in there. It makes me happy sad! 

Animal Kingdom!

Once again, a perfect score. These questions were pretty easy for me once again, but I do happen to know quite a bit about Animal Kingdom (not that I don't know quite a bit about Epcot...my username is EpcotExpert after all). Regardless, now I'm just waiting for the quiz on Hollywood Studios, which I'll probably also do great at. Let's just keep the quizzes coming, right? 

What was your score? Any questions that tripped you up? 

Have a magical day!

Day 682: 76 Trombones

One of my favorite musicals of all time is, of course, The Music Man. I'm not totally sure how or when it became one of my favorite musicals, but I remember watching the TV movie version as a kid. I had it recorded on a VHS tape (except for the first couple of minutes...it started during the middle of the first song). Regardless, I watched it all the time, and I've introduced it to many of my friends since then.

When my roommate Ashley and I found out that our roommate Hannah hadn't seen The Music Man, we knew that we had work to do. We're constantly singing music from musicals, including this one, so it only makes sense for her to see the musical itself, right? Correct. 100% correct.

But whenever I hear 76 Trombones, a different thought comes to mind. Whenever you hear the song, I feel like a lot of people laugh because really, what band has 76 trombones performing? Not many, that's for sure. In my High School we were lucky to have 3 or 4, and here at college I think we probably have around 10. Granted, these were both smaller schools, so I suppose it's entirely possible to have 76 trombones, but I've never seen it...except for one time.

One of my favorite moments of the opening of Disneyland, which took place on July 17, 1955, was the parade, led by none other than 76 trombones!  And when Disney does something, he does it right. The actual composer of the musical, Meredith Willson, was present as a special guest of Walt himself. Art Linkletter, one of the hosts of the opening, asks Willson what he sees coming up Main Street, and there, to the joy of everyone, is 76 trombones playing the song itself. Willson went on during the special to actually conduct the group in a standstill performance as well.

Footage of the moment isn't on YouTube, but you can find video of it out there. I know I have it on a Disneyland DVD that's part of the Collector Series, so it does exist! But if you want some proof, here's a picture:

And since we've been talking about the song all day, you can listen to it here too!

We did finally get Hannah to watch The Music Man, and while Ashley and I watched it as kids, finding sympathy for The Music Man himself, Hannah didn't think so. Con Man forever. It was a debate we had throughout the movie, trying to figure out if we would feel the same way if we saw the film for the first time. Honestly, I still don't know how I would feel if I saw it for the first time today instead of as a kid. I guess we'll never know, will we?

Have a magical day!

Day 681: Two Years Ago

To be 100% honest, I almost didn't blog on time today, although I've spent the last five and a half hours or so working on my blog. See, I joined one of my friends in the library this evening and since we were sitting at the giant computer table in the basement, I figured that I would use it to write a blog post: this blog post as a matter of fact. Only, I noticed a bit of an issue when I started...the title for the latest day was 681, but the blog post count itself only showed 680. It meant that somewhere along the line there was still an issue, and I can't believe I didn't notice it over the past couple of weeks. 

So for the past five and a half hours I spent my life recording every single blog post in a giant spreadsheet that includes all the dates they're posted, Day numbers and titles. It. Took. Forever. Honestly though, it was probably a good idea. I found a couple of other errors, and now, and I swear this is the last time I'll say this, the blog appears to be all correct. The funny part? I found errors as far back as month 1, as in January of 2013. Yep, fixed those and am all up to date. 

In other words, at the beginning of this adventure I actually had an idea of what this blog post was going to be about, but at this point my brain is just kind of mush. I'm still sort of debating stopping this writing at the moment and picking it back up tomorrow because I don't even really know what I'm writing about. I have no clue how Disney has fit into my day, other than the fact that I've spent the last five hours looking back at all the old blog posts. 

I suppose, therefore, I'll talk about that. A long while ago, my friend asked me if it was weird looking back at the old posts. I mean, we're talking posts from over a year ago, and it is. I looked at just about every single post in the last year and a half. I didn't read them all, but I looked through them all, saw pictures of them all and added them all into the new master file I have. A part of it feels like "That was sooooo long ago," but the other part is like "That was THAT long ago?" It makes for an add combination. 

And since we're being sentimental today, I suppose I'll also mention that two years ago today (so a while before this blog even existed) was one of the most important days in my life. As far as I can tell from Timehop, two years ago today was the exact first day we decided to audition for Disney Performing Arts. We had a band council meeting and the entire thing was discussed and we set our minds to it. Now it's all over and done with (other than that band trip video which causes me pain and suffering constantly because it's just taking forever and I feel bad about that fact), and it's just a weird thing to look back at. In case you were wondering, I know this because of a Facebook Status I posted that day:

"Even though I've put so much of myself into this...I haven't asked for much in return...and if I have, it's for the opportunity to learn. now I've been blessed with even the possibility of not only a learning experience, but also for my greatest dream to come true...and I hope there is an understanding that this time, if I'm let down it will completely crush me. I've kept my hopes down for three years...and I thought that this would never come true...but due to the conditions...it's now a possibility...but if it falls through, it wouldn't be like before, it would be ripped from my hands. But I know I have a job to do...and no matter what I still have to do that job...and I will do everything I can to make my dream possibly for everyone else, even if I can't participate in it myself."

This status is incredibly important for me, since there was so much drama surrounding the band trip, with words put not only in my mouth, but the mouths of those around me. The situation, as you know, was not good in any shape or form. But throughout the whole thing, I constantly related back to this thought, and it's nice to know that the whole time, I was indeed telling the truth. This point has stuck with me since the first day the Disney trip came up in conversation, and it held true until long after the trip itself was finished. 

Right now though? I really need to go back to my dorm room and sleep. I need to sleep...so darn much. 

Have a magical day!

Day 680: Kitchen Kabaret

As you know well, my classes provide ample opportunity for me to relate things to Disney. It happens almost daily in some classes (like Fairy Tales was), and sometimes it's a bit less often. I've talked about class after class, but I'm actually not sure if I've ever talked about a reference in my French class. Mostly what we do is sit and learn vocabulary there, so it would be rather difficult to relate things constantly. But today? Today I actually had a very Disney-sort of thought, since we're studying food, and it all goes back to my Sophomore Year of High School.

I took French my first two years at SHS, and I'm taking it again now, mostly because I honestly didn't remember much by the time I got around to taking the college language competency test. So here I am, taking French again. But I do remember a project that we did in High School, which was actually one of the first videos I did and it was tons of fun.

Now, I can't actually find the whole video anymore. It's been long lost to the internet I fear, but I do have the introduction to the cooking show we made for class, titled Cooking Don'ts. Honestly, I believe it would be a pretty darn good television show, all about the things you SHOULDN'T do while cooking or baking. I remember filming the video and miss Lilly came up and ate some of the pie. Gosh this was all a long time ago.

When I made the film though, we had to pick a song, and I couldn't come up with a better song than the Kitchen Kabaret melody. It fit perfectly with what we were doing, even if the lyrics are in English instead of French. Regardless, here's the intro:

Honestly, it's weird to look back at that and then look at some of the things I've done more recently in the world of film. Actually, I'm kind of glad that the rest of it is lost to the world. Who knows what Megan and I look like. Although if this whole thing taught us one thing, it's that poutine is great...and we can't wait to have some at Le Cellier in January. 

Have a magical day!

Day 679: Colors of Disney

Since I have one less class than any of my three roommates (or four if you include Katie!), and I'm only just training for my job here on campus, I take it upon myself to do things around the dorm room. Some days that means cleaning, and sometimes I do nothing more than update Melvin's adorable little outfit. Regardless, the past couple of days I've been hard at work deciding how to decorate the room for Christmas, and while you'll see that in a future blog post for sure, the important part for right now is that I was working with lots and lots of color.

Which got me thinking. As I picked out colors of paper for one of the projects, I'd come across a color that simply reminded me of something at Disney. Generally, it was a lot of Old Key West thinking, because the color palette at OKW is absolutely one of my favorites in the entire world. I wouldn't be surprised if my house is themed to the Gingerbread Architecture and soft pastel colors that make up the resort someday.

Either way, once I thought about color palettes, I figured maybe it would be fun to search out some Disney ones. The thing was, I couldn't find too many, so I decided to make a few of my own instead! I picked out some of my favorite Disney Instagram pictures and used an online generator to pull out the colors and then created the color palette picture myself.

It took me a while to figure out how to make these, and I'm sure it's not exactly how the color palettes work, but they were a lot of fun to make, that's for sure! I think that it's safe to say that there will be more color palettes in the future. Also, I figured I would share this. On the last one, of Spaceship Earth, the main color it supplied me with is the color featured on the plaque (although it's not actually on the palette itself), and the name of it is Matterhorn. Seems even color names are Disney-like! 

Have a magical day!

Day 678: A Frozen Wish

I feel like with Frozen, you either love it or you don't. There is no in between, especially when it comes to Disney fans. As awesome as the film is, and it's great that it was so absolutely successful, there are a lot of hardcore Disney fans that are just sick of the entire thing. And then there are the people that are the exact opposite and wish for everything to be Frozen all the time. It's an odd, but delicate balance.

I, personally, I stuck in the middle...sort of. It depends on the day whether I love or hate Frozen, and even today I'm not sure where I stand. When I saw the film, I did fall in love. I loved the music and the plot and the characters and...we've already covered this multiple times over. And I loved Frozen for quite some time, and then I just kind of got sick of it. And then it was decided that they would be on Once and I groaned a little bit...and then I met the versions on OUAT and fell in love and then I was definitely back in that state. In fact, Georgina Haig, who plays Elsa on Once, posted the other day about how she's finished filming for the show and I just wanted it to be a lie because I want them to stay forever.

And then the Christmas stuff at Disney started.

Now, I can't really say that I ever attended the castle lighting ceremony at Magic Kingdom. Maybe once I did a really long time ago, but I certainly haven't seen it recently, and I did watch the Frozen version that's brand new this year. To be honest, it almost made me cry. The simple ease and smoothness between the actors, the projection, lights and fireworks makes the entire thing mesmerizing.

And then they decide that the Christmas Parade will be Frozen and everything else will be Frozen and FROZEN, FROZEN, FROZEN!

So I'm back to wondering if I like Frozen or not. It's a difficult decision to say the least, especially when your opinion seems to change with the day. For now though, let's all just watch the Frozen Castle Lighting Ceremony:

Have a magical day!

Day 677: Changing the Countdown

I've been counting down to Disney Trips for almost as long as I can remember, and over the years I've had some pretty creative ways of counting. Sometimes it would be a countdown for the last ten days, other times the wait would be in the hundreds, but regardless the ending was always the same: Disney.

Now a days, I count down to a lot of things. On my phone I have a countdown app that allows me three separate countdowns, one of which is almost always set to a Disney vacation. At the moment, a second one is set for a Disney trip, which happens to be Disneyland next August in addition to my WDW trip this January. In between I have one other countdown, since I'm quite excited about the fact that in a few months I'll be meeting Alton Brown, Food Network Television Host and Creator of Good Eats, the show that actually inspired me to cook and bake. We'll get into that in February though. Actually, I'm not sure what I'm going to do in a couple of weeks when I have to recreate a countdown for Once Upon A Time because it'll go on hiatus again and I always countdown when it's on hiatus.

Either way, aside from my phone, I have other ways to countdown to my latest vacation, and this time I'm quite excited about the fact that I share the countdown with my best friends. It's definitely depressing to have a countdown just for yourself. You want to share the excitement, and that's something I can do now!

The problem? Countdowns have to be updated. The nice thing about the phone is that it updates how many days are left all by itself. I don't have to worry about it whatsoever. But if I have another countdown I have to make sure that it stays up to date. It took over a year to figure out how to do that, but I finally realized that the best day to keep it updated is to make the amount larger, or wider rather. So instead of counting specifically how many days, I've been doing months...although I was still behind until today. Once we hit the one month mark in a few weeks I'll count it down by the weeks themselves, although eventually I'll head home and make a different countdown there. The countdowns have gotten more colorful over time too. I think this is my favorite so far, and there's been countdowns for just about everything on that whiteboard!

Of course, Butterfinger the Bear is pretty darn adorable too. He keeps me company. =)

Have a magical day!