Large Nerdron ColliderAriel and Jonathan talk about some of their favorite geeky places. From science museums to amusement parks, we talk about the locations we love to go to in order to geek out big time.
Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Larger Drunk Collider podcast, the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in the world around us and how very excited we are about them. I'm Aerial cast and with me as always is the spooky and spectacular Jonathan Streeland.
What's the BUZZZ? Tell me what's a happen?
Then? Well, sag After has asked all of their members not to dress as characters from Stricken Work for Halloween and posted on social media. I guess you could if you don't post on social.
Media, but yeah, yeah, it's a I mean, the negotiations continue. Like I read up on some of the stuff that was going on where they had even like the sag After folks had even reduced some of their requests and it was after they had made the reduction that the studio has walked out and said, you're being unreasonable, And I'm like, that's not how negotiations work. Yeah.
Yeah, they're technically stalled right now. But saying after it is saying, hey, dress up is your favorite characters from non stricken work like animated shows?
Yeah, or literature? What hasn't already been adapted into a movie?
Yes.
Yeah, Like there's like four books out there that I think still haven't been turned into a movie yet.
I mean, I guess you could dress as a character from the book and not match what was in a TV show or movie.
Yeah, or you could just walk around and tell everyone, no, this is just the book version.
Yeah. Yeah, that gets a little bit tricksy.
But yeah, we're the only reason I'm even joking about it is because you either laugh or you cry.
Yeah, you know. I'm still hopeful that the studios will see the segaff is not going to be bullied and that we will see a resolution soon. But maybe I'm too much of an optimist.
I mean, I'm hopeful too. I mean, it's been going on for almost one hundred days now, and of course the WGA strike went for nearly one hundred and fifty days. So my hope is that we're closer to the end than we are the beginning. Absolutely certainly, I hope that because there are too many people out there, We've said time and again, too many actors out there who are not making the big bucks. They're not the Robert Downey juniors of the world, pulling in like multiple millions of dollars per appearance. They're you know, sometimes when you add up all the money they make from acting, they're barely scraping together the money they need just to keep insurance. So yeah, I'm really hopeful that in soon as well, because there are too many people who are you know, they're life hoods are on hold, and that's I can't even imagine, Like if that were happening to me, I don't know how I would be functioning right now.
Yeah, I mean you can get so like if you might be able to get stage work. There's not a lot of stage work in like if you're an Atlanta actor, but you might be able to get some stage work because that's separate, or you might be able to get voice over work. But yeah, it is hard for a lot of people. I know some of my friends who are in like AATSI are going to TikTok and stuff like that to try to get something.
Yeah. Yeah, because obviously this has an impact well beyond just the actors, right, it impacts everyone who works on these productions. Like even though the writers and the directors have both had new agreements with the AMPTP, it's not like they can jump into the work and so yeah, it's it's a big deal. But saying that aside, before we jump into any other geeky conversations, just curious, Ariel, what you've been up to?
Telling my phone to stop ringing if anybody heard that, I'm sorry, God, what have I been up to?
It wasn't meant to be a tough question. I apologize no.
Like I performed with Artsy at Dragon Con and that was yesterday, but it was also a month ago.
Yeah, that was the beginning of September.
Yeah, I'm I'm still working on the short film non Union. It's an independent project that I was working on. I need to do some adr for that, but it's in the process. I'm in a staged reading of an original script in December, so that's fun.
That's cool.
Yeah, And otherwise I'm just it looks like it's not one hundred percent certain, but it's looking like the foster cat might be my cat, now, gotcha. So just dealing with the fun of all of that, craziness of all of that. What have you been up to?
I have been editing another podcast that I'm not on, Yes, that friend of the show, Shaye Lee launch called Kaddy Womple with the Shadow People. Kaddi Womple is to venture outward without a clear idea of what your destination is, but you're doing it purposefully, like you're setting out. You don't know where you're going, but you've got purpose. So she launched this show. It's a very like I think if it is sort of Welcome to night Vale mixed with a little HB. Lovecraft mixed with a whole lot of Appalachian tone to it. And I just finished the edit for the fifth episode in that series, which changes over to a new protagonist. She's got several different arcs planned for this overall series, so we're kind of going into arc two, and it meant that I got to play around a lot with new sound effects and new music cues, and I'm worried that by the time we get to like the third or fourth arc, it'll be mostly sound effects and music cues and occasionally I'll let Shay talk.
I mean, I've listened to a little bit of Cotty Womple, and I enjoyed it. So far, I haven't had time to listen to it a lot. I plan on actually listening on my way to the final final game of Calamity at the beginning of next month.
And just for y'all who don't remember, Calamity is one of the LARPs that Ariel plays.
Yes, it's coming to an end. We have one more three day event and then that's it. We might have like an in play party afterwards if we all survived, but we might all die and destroy the world. So but I plan on listening to it more than But I like it so far, and I think, you know, having a a fight between sound effects and music and Shay could be entertaining for an episode.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got a little so like certain episodes, I'm a little more restrained, but in others I'm underscoring a lot more with music and sound effects. And the new arc has a character who her very nature is one that prompts sound effects, so yeah, it's getting used a lot. Like even in the first episode, I thought, oh, I'll be using this one sound effect or one type of sound effect at least once an episode. I think I must have used it, not the same one, but the same general kind of sound effect at least five or six times in just that first episode. And every episode is going to have it because sometimes it's a plot device, so it's going to be a lot of that. But yeah, I think it's a lot of fun to work on because since I'm not in it, I don't mind listening to it, and I can pay really close attention and say, oh that that sounds like that's a great queue for some sort of soundscaping. And if it's something that I'm in, I can't stand listening with that level of attention.
I'm so sorry, Jonathan. Are you saying that we need to hire an editor?
No, because fortunately our podcast doesn't require the heavy hand of editing that a narrative fiction podcast does because we're a conversational like Peak behind the Curtain. Yeah, I do edit the show, and occasionally I have to cut something out, but it's pretty rare. Like normally, it's just if there was like a technical glitch, or you know, maybe like an emergency vehicle went past one of our houses and it was really loud, stuff.
Like that, or I cuss, or i'd name the name of a stricken property during a strike, or.
Yeah, once in a blue moon, I have to do that, but I mean it's really rare. I mean I also have been known to say things where I thought, oh wait, that's a little too casual for this here podcast. And casual I mean vulgar.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a problem when you and I, when you know someone for so long, you sometimes forget that other people are listening to.
Well yeah, and Ariel, what's kind of funny, Like you and I have known each other for so long, but I think it was a while before you and I were like cussing like sailors in front of each other. But that's the thing is that I don't cuss like a sailor all the time, but when I get in certain moods, I my inner editor takes the night off.
Yeah. I've been trying to at least make my cussing more creative.
I fail a lot, but well, I mean on that. On that note, so you know, Shay and my partner Becca, we're all gonna go down to Disney World later this year, and I ended up getting like a pass to six Flags over Georgia for the first time in ages. And Shane and I have gone a couple of times, and as Charal runs, I keep turning to her and saying, Okay, we're going to practice now. Because Shaye makes Shaye and Becca together put me in the dust. When it comes to casual vulgarity, and they're not They're not common or nasty or anything like that. That's just that's just the way that they communicate. But I told Shane, like, we're going to be around a lot of kids, and I want to make sure that we're able to have conversations that don't have a colorful metaphors dropped every other word. And so far she has done okay, but she's gonna need to crank that up to perfect before we get to Disney.
I mean, I can't I can't say I've not dropped some bombs at Disney.
You know.
I was watching TikTok the other day and apparently the Land, not the World has has like these cute little robots that walk around now in their galaxies edge, and I hope they make it to our galaxies edge.
Yeah. I saw those little like bipedal, like not even knee high robots. I mean they look they look pretty short, maybe knee high, but they were really small but absolutely adorable. It's almost like being followed by ducklings, robotic ducklings, and yeah, I would love to see those make their way to Orlando. It's complicated as well because there's like a whole bunch of different like IP ownership rules that are in play in Orlando versus in Orange County out in California. So, for example, I'm not going to talk about any Stricken work, but more generally, when it comes to Marvel, Orlando only has a certain number of Marvel properties that it can even use in parks because Universal owns in perpetuity the rights to other Marvel characters to use on in parks. On the East coast, it's not the case on the West coast, but on the East coast that's the case. However, there's also these crazy rumors going around about Universal potentially acquiring Warner Brothers Discovery sometime in the future, which then brings up the question of, well, does that mean Universal could start to incorporate like Looney Tunes characters and things of that nature into their parks, except those rights are owned by six Flags. So, like I, as I was looking into this, I just thought, man, intellectual property is so complicated.
Yeah, yeah, And like even as a musician, Yeah, my band does fun covers of songs, right, We write some of our own stuff, and we do a lot of public domain stuff, but we do some fun covers too, and I'm like, ah, man, I want to share these. I don't even want to make money off of them. But it's still like just mind boggling on where can I put this? Do I need to get rights? Do I need to get do I need to pay I'll pay someone? How much? Where I'm not making money off? Like? So, yeah, IP is it's important, yes, but it's very confusing.
Yeah, because this also gets into the whole sticky world of things like AI generated content. Can someone own the IP to AI generated content? If that AI was using someone else's work to train itself, does that mean that they technically are dependent upon that? Artists like it just it's just getting more complicated as time goes on.
Which did you watch? This is going to only apply to a very small subset of our listeners. But did you watch the latest breaking news on Dropout TV?
I did not? Oh, so this is the breaking news for those who do not know explain the premise of the show for everyone.
So breaking news isn't. First of all, I'm gonna just say not for the faint of heart. That is a warning.
Not kid friendly at all, not.
Some adult friendly either. They go all kinds of places, and sometimes it's a lot of potty humor. Basically, someone writes a newscast and then they put four news anchors for actors as news anchors in different positions to read the ticker tape of that newscast that was written, and the goal is for the writer to get the actors to laugh, and whoever laughs the most loses the episode and sometimes has to do like a dare or something, yeah, based off of it.
Not always, but occasionally, yeah, yeah.
Not always, but occasionally. And these actors, the writer is also an actor, and they all know each other very well, and so sometimes it's inside jokes. Sometimes it's really vulgar.
Sometimes sometimes the entire episode is just dogging on one specific person who's part of the broadcast.
Yes, yes, but those people usually get the other people back. But this latest episode that came out last week was they called it an AI generated script, and I didn't realize that it was not actually AI generated because it got real meta and kind is scary if you think an Ai wrote it, gotcha, But no, it was it was grant. But that being said, phenomenal episode.
Yeah, well, and I've seen a few of those things where it's a piece that was purportedly created by AI, and in almost every case, I'm pretty sure it was someone either. If it was partly created by AI, it was just like little bits that were heavily edited into something that was more funny and more you know, tight. But often I'm pretty sure it's just someone who's writing, like they're writing as they're putting their brain as if if I were an absurd AI, how would I write this? And then they write it as opposed to an AI actually creating it. That being said, like the way generative AI is now, I think some of those things could be done for real. It's just back when I was seeing them, it was like five years ago before Generative AI was anywhere close to what it is now.
Yeah. Well, And like I was watching John Mulaney on Hot Ones the other day because he recently did an interview on there and I missed it, but I went back to watch it because he had a comedy special, which where that falls in streaming and stricken work, I have no idea, but I trust him because he's a writer and he's an actor. I think he's a member of all those guilds. But he was talking about how part of comedy is it being delivered by a person? So like, there are some there are some, he said, there are some solid AI jokes, but I wouldn't cross any of them into the realm of good. And if they are good, it's still lacking the human deliveries.
So yeah, I think. I think that's largely the case with most of the AI generated stuff, is that it tends to lack something. But part of that is me wondering how much of my own bias am I bringing to it? Like if you brought me, you know, ten short stories and five of them were written by you know, competent, good human writers, and five of them were written by AI, would I sight unseen otherwise be able to tell the difference? And I don't know, Like, I don't know if I would you know, after the fact, if you told me, or if you had them labeled already, or even if you were really deviant you had mislabeled some of them, would I perceive it to have been? Oh yeah, well, clearly a machine wrote this, and that machine happens to be named you know, Derek, And then I feel badly for Derek. Sorry, Derek's out there. I picked you because that's the go to name that my brother, my brother and me uses.
I mean, I feel like, of course this will always change. There are tells, right, so if you listen to enough AI generated scripts, you might start thinking they sound similar.
That's true. Yeah, And anyway, let's you know, us kind of meandering around. And of course the reason why we are still meandering is due to these strikes and that, you know, it limits what we can talk about. But we also were chatting thinking about chatting about some other stuffs.
Yeah, which you had a wonderful segue into and I just completely ignored it, which is talking about geeky places we've been right.
Yeah, I hadn't really even thought of the segue. I didn't even think of it as a segue. So it's funny that you pointed it out because my brain did not connect those two dots.
But yes, so we both missed our genius.
Yeah, it's fine, my genius. No one misses my genius. Trust me, we're all glad. It's go. Oh you're so sweet. Yeah. I thought we'd talk a little bit about some of the geeky places we've been to, like things that we went to specifically because it appealed to our geek nature. Obviously ones that don't directly connect to stuff that's like promoting a film or television series or whatever like that. But you know, we talked about Omegamart recently and the Mele Wolf installation and how awesome we both thought that was. And I was just thinking, like, what other where are some of the other places we've gone to. So, for example, one of the ones I would rattle off doesn't exist anymore, sadly, but it was called Sidetrack, and it's the sort of thing that it's in a lot of different cities where it's a science museum geared toward toward kids and teenagers, and it's all meant to demonstrate specific elements of science, mostly physics, but other stuff as well, and you learn by getting your hands on the stuff and exploring and playing with things. And I remember loving that place and being heartbroken when it shut down.
Yeah, yeah, I love Sidetrak too, And there are other options out there in Atlanta, because that's that's where I visited Sidetrack. Like I've been to the Boston Museum of Science, right and yeah, and like I haven't been to the one in Pittsburgh because i'd have to borrow a kid to do it, I think, but Carnegie Mellon Carnegie Carnegie Mellon has like a children's science center too. That's really cool, because Carnegie Mellon does a whole bunch of science stuff. We do have other ones like tell Us Science Museum and the Children's Museum and even parts of the High Museum of Art, but none of them are quite the same.
Yeah.
I used to leave Sidetrack with a fully covered face of paint because they have painting station.
I always loved, like all the electricity related exhibits, including ones where you know, you would pedal a bicycle in order to power a light bulb and it would teach you, like how much physical activity was needed in order for you to power the what was essentially a generator a dynamo, and in turn that powered the light bulb. Chicago has the Museum of Science and Industry, and y'all, if you've not been, if you live anywhere close to Chicago and you haven't been, you've got to go for one. I believe that's the one remaining building from the World's Fair in the late nineteenth century when the World's Fair was in Chicago and they were showing off things like alternating current for the first time to the wide public. That was one of the buildings that was constructed for the World's Fair, and as far as I know, it's the only remaining one in the city of Chicago. But the museum itself is phenomenal. I loved it when I went there, and again, like I went as an adult. It's meant for younger folks, but I still got a lot out of it just going and delighting in at fern Bank here in Atlanta, another great museum that has some elements of the Science Museum in it.
Yeah, I'm going to Chicago next year, so I will need a reminder of that.
Yeah, absolutely right, It's absolutely phenomenal. You'll you'll love it. Yeah. No, I just think about all those then I think about some of the other geeky ones that are I would argue far less educational, but sometimes just as interactive and often goofy is all.
Heck.
So, for example, Ariel, do you do you happen to know where I honeymooned, what city I honeymooned in. I'll give you a hand. It's not in America.
Hawaii.
Hawaii is in America and the US a city and it is in America.
So no one both counts Paris.
Oh no, but it is connected by it. There you go London, a honeymoon in London. So we did some We did some really goofy tourist trappy stuff while we were there. We've been to London several times and part of me still loves going to like the tourist trap kind of stuff occasionally because it's always got like a charm to it. So one of the things we did we did the Jack the ripperteur at night walking around Whitechapel, which was really interesting. But the other thing we did was they had a museum called the London Dungeon that was supposed to be all about like torture and prisons and stuff, so think of like a wax museum, but with the sort of medieval torture theme and a little bit of haunted house elements worked into it. And it was the cheesiest thing, and I loved every second of it. It was way over price, especially for where we were economically at that point, but I still very much enjoyed the whole experience. It was so goofy uh and uh and morbid, and I loved it.
So, you know, I just got back from Saint Augustine. I went on a vacation there, and they had a torture museum and they had a pirate museum, and I couldn't bring myself to go to either. Because I've worked at the Renaissance Festival for so long, I hear it like this is lost its appeal.
I have been to the Pirate museum, and I think you would have fun there, though I've been to that. I've been both to the pirate museum and they also have a shipwreck museum. But yeah, the Pirate Museum over in Saint Augustine is fun. It's not quite as cheesy as what you might think, especially coming from Ourmaizonce Festival background. It's got some of that to it, obviously, but I don't think they go whole hog. I mean, for one thing, they're not very far from the actual fort of Saint Augustine, which is also a fantastic place to visit.
Yeah. Also in Sant Augustine is a Renaissance Festival, one of the gee places I used to visit before I worked there. Not really educational, but fun. They also have an arcade museum in St. Augustine.
Yeah, I saw that there was like a pinball museum. That's not too because I was looking around at different stuff and I saw that there's also a pinball Museum of up in Blue Ridge, Georgia, which I went to. It was cute. I did not get to go to the Pinball Hall of Fame over at in Las Vegas, Nevada when I was out there, but I have seen videos of that. The one in Blue Ridge is one of those places where you pay a flat admission fee and then everything's on free play. The one in Las Vegas, though, they go old school. You have to bring money and get tokens in order to play the pinball machines there.
So I mean this one was nice because it was like you paid twelve bucks a person or something like that, and you got a wristband and you could play all day and then you can leave and then you could come back. That's the same.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
And they had some games that weren't pinball, but it was largely pinball, and I spent most of my time on the doctor who won There is a yeah, except for the ball kept getting stuck and after the third time I got stuck and I had to get the guy to help me. I was like, I'm gonna step.
Away forget get it.
But the fun Spot in New Hampshire is like a four story arcade.
Wow.
It's kind of like between the city and I say the city. There are cities, but like it's kind of between Manchester. It's like on your way from Manchester to Lake Winnipesake and it's it's just giant and they've got like the original pong machine there and it's really really cool. I think it was featured in King of Kong at one point.
That's cool.
I haven't watched King of Kong, but our friend Kate tells me that great geeky place. You know, a lot of the places that I've visited that are geeky, that aren't like rip bwoys, believe it or not, are things that, like I personally find geeky. So one of my favorite things to do is to go up to Delanaga during gold rush days and hit like the gold mines and pan for gems.
I like going into the Carolinas and doing ruby mining, which is the same sort of thing where you're getting. Essentially, what they do is they dig up big buckets full of dirt and they give you the dirt to sift through, and you can either get just this is literally dirt we dug out of an area that we know has some gold and or gems in it, but there's no guarantee that any of that is in your bucket, or you get the seated ones where they have purposefully put in gems and or gold in your I don't do the seated ones, I want to be clear, but I think it's good to have for the kiddies.
Yeah, I agree. I think seeded buckets are good for the kids and for me, and like it. I wanted to be a gemologist or mineralogist for a long time, kind of both, because you know, I would do that. I would go up to Lake Superior and find agates and always be like, what is this rock? What is this rock? I'd love going. I still love going to museums that just have all kinds of rocks and gems and stuff in them. The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is really cool to me.
That s actually of it.
Yeah, but I prefer unseated as well.
Yeah, fair, that's fair. I think I think that's like, like, I don't mind if I don't have anything, because for me. It's the looking that's the fun part, right, Like if you find something that's awesome. And I once upon a time I had a little film canister. Kids ask your parents what a film canister is. But once upon a time I had a little film canister that had like seven or eight tiny little rubies in it that I had found when ruby mining. Nothing worth really writing home about at all, like nothing that would be valuable, but it was cool to do. I was gonna mention kind of in the vein of those pinball machine arcade museum type things. There's a museum in San Diego I've been to called muse Mechanique, and it's all like coin operated amusements, which includes pinball, but it also includes stuff from like the turn of the century where you'd put a coin in and you'd see a little like metal horses running on a track, or there'd be a haunted house version where like ghosts would pop out and like it would be a short, like maybe thirty second minute long kind of tableau that would play out in front of you for the coin. I also remember there was one where it was cowboys sitting around the fire and if you put a coin in, they tooted a lot.
Okay, kind of reminds me. I don't know, I've never been to House on the Rock, but it kind of reminds me of stuff that I would see there.
Yeah. I haven't been there either. The only reason I even know about is from the novel American Gods God.
Yeah, I might be a little creeped out to go there. It's a weird like oddities place.
Yeah. I didn't even know it existed until I read that book, and I thought, how is it that I've lived so relatively close, like it's not that far away, it's not like it's on the other side of the country, and yet never known about it.
Yeah. Yeah. Another geeky place that no longer exists but I used to love is Disney Quest.
Oh my gosh, Yes, where you would go in and they had all the really immersive video game like experiences, some of which are connected well I guess they're all connected to animation, but anyway, they were all like like you would be like you were simulating going down a river on a raft or the pirate battle was my favorite.
The pirate ship battle was your favorite. Mine was the Uh. I don't know if this is a stricken work, but basically the Space Ranger themed bumper cars where you could roll over pham balls that were asteroids and your car would pick them up, and then you can put load them into a cannon and shoot them at other cars and if you hit the other cars in their target, they'd spin around.
Yeah, that was my favorite. They used to have something like that at Six Legs once upon a time, But my memory of that is so old that it had to have been like ten or fifteen years ago, probably more, because it's not like I go to Six Legs that often. This year it's the most I've been at six Flags since the last like twenty years combined, so.
I've gone every once in a while. I used to go all the time when I was a young kid because my biological father worked there. So a lot of my memories are of old stuff like that. And I'm like, does it even still Like I don't even know if the looping starship is still there?
No, it's not, Okay, so neither's the regular ship that just would do the big swing. That's yeah, like the big pirate ship type thing would it was just a giant swing. I love that one because I love the I love the airtime you would get But yeah, that one's not there, or at least I didn't see it the last time I was there. There are like eight different versions of the tilta World kind of ride all in one section. I'm just like, man, I can understand why they don't have any food booths here because all the rides scramble.
You does it just smell like vomit everywhere.
You know what. I try not to think about it, and I just put my head down and march right through.
That being said, I've been to Kenny Wood more in the past seven years, and I've been to six Flags Way. What is a theme park in Pittsburgh or right outside of Pittsburgh. It's cute, Okay. They have this place called the Potato Patch where they'll take an entire potato and ribbon it up and then or up and then put like gravy on it for.
You, which I can't tasty. Yeah, you with your night shades sensitivity, you can't really do that.
Yeah, but it is tasty. I've done it, and I've regretted it, but it's tasty.
Yeah. You know, sometimes in a moment of passion, of potato passion, you throw caution to the wind, then you go ahead and eat yourself of potato and you'll just say I'll deal with the consequences later.
Yes.
Yeah, I've been to Cedar Point, which is considered to be like the roller coaster capital of the United States, and man there's some great It was years ago when I went, but man there's some great coasters there too. Yeah. These are the sort of like my geeky When I think of geeky places, I think of a few different categories, like places where I get to learn about stuff, usually through participation of some sort, or ones that are really historically significant and I get to walk through history, like the Alamo, for example, is one that I associate with that. Or I think of ones that kind of bring out the inner child in some other way. And to me, like I thought about this as we were kind of brainstorming what we're going to talk about, I was trying to think of what's the connective tissue to me that makes these things kind of geeky, And I think ultimately it's that they all sort of tap into a sense of curiosity. And I think of curiosity as being a very childlike not childish, but childlike quality and people who tend to consider themselves geeks tend to maintain a sense of curiosity throughout their lives.
Yeah, yeah, I feel like that is very true. I also feel like a lot of these places, even if it's just walking through like the Alamo or you know, to Loom in Mexico and visiting some structures, right, it's a feeling of like being a part of it too.
Yeah. Well, it's so different from just reading about it, right, to actually see and to get a feel for what it really was like, even on a very superficial level, because obviously you know, you're not when you're at the Alamo, You're not being attacked by an army or anything. I hope that it certainly didn't happen when I was there. They but like that also reminds me of King John's castle in Ireland, not that he ever went there, but he has a castle named after him, and the castle. When I went to Ireland, I went to visit this castle, and they had a combination of things that I think speak directly to my love of geekiness, which is one, they had a bunch of displays, and they were very wide displays, but they were stood up on end so they're very tall, right and narrow, and they use those in like fake doorways and windows so that a character would appear and talk to you and they would, you know, explain things like how you would mint coins in the medieval era, or what the job of the stable keeper would be like back during the era when the castle was first built. And that was really neat. I was like, wow, what a cool use of technology. Like they they didn't, you know, they don't have to have an actor here tell the same story forty times and then get interrupted or anything. They've got this this video stuff going. But the other element was they had rooms filled with like costume pieces and props and or just stuff and you could just pick it up and put it on and play with it. So like there was one point where there was a rack that had swords stood in it, and the swords were supposed to be chained to the rack, but the one I grab, I pull and there's no chain on it and I completely pull the sword out and I'm like, well, this is not this would never work in the US.
This is King of England.
Yeah, which I'm sure the Irish would be really thrilled to say that King of Ireland.
Sorry, that's as you said, you pulled a sword out, that was just pulled out. I thought the sword in the.
Stone and it was King John's castle and John was the King of England. So but yeah, it was like there were so many places in Ireland that that fit that description of where, Like I can't tell, I can't really get my finger on the motivating factor behind it being so kind of haphazard, Like I can't tell if it's just charming, if it was done intentionally, if it was done due to a lack of resources, But whatever the purpose, it ended up being a real fun time.
Nice. Nice. We should start wrapping this episode up, But I have I have one more question for you, going back a little bit to like keep Parks. What what is your opinion on roadside carnivals?
Uh, I always want to go to them, and then when I'm at them, I'm questioning my decisions that led me to that point, Like I like the idea of them. I haven't been to one in a while. Like the closest I've gotten to are like big state fairs, which you know obviously are temporary events and they will construct rides and everything for that and they're essentially using the exact same equipment that you would find in the traveling carnivals. But for some reason, it feels like maybe there was a little more attention to detail given for all of that, Whereas whenever I'm at one of those roadside ones that's temporary, I'm always thinking, huh, I wonder if all the bolts are as tight as this one or.
So.
Yeah, I mean like, I like the idea, and certainly I've written like some of my favorite ride experiences were at those sorts of attractions, but it has been a while since I've been to one. What's what about you? What's your what's your take on the roadside carnival?
So I like them. I tend not to do a bunch of the really really scary rides there because I'm scared enough of doing them at like a Legit regularly park. Yeah, but like a lot of the smaller rides, I like getting some of the fried food I enjoy doing, like the fun houses and the mirrors, or like the little one where like you're you're in a car and you go around on a bumpy and you get sick.
They're kind of like a tilted World, Tilted World type of thing, yeah.
Yeah, or or a Turkish twister. I guess that's not a good name for it anymore. The one where they the cycling where they put you in and you stick to the wall.
Oh yeah, Like I always think of that as the well the one I think of as the gravitron, which is the interior one, right, like you're inside a structure and you lean back against a padded a padded surface that's on wheels so that when it spins around it, that goes up the track and your feet leave the floor. But there's also the one where it's just on the giant arm and the arm goes up in the air and you're just like, please, I hope I didn't eat too much at Thanksgiving this year because I don't want to go flying off.
I can't. I can't do those as much now that I'm an adult. But the one ride that, no matter where I encounter it, I do not like is the planes that are on the chain that like tilt out when you sit in them, because I have nightmares about falling out of those where I'm hanging on to the chain.
Did I tell you the story of how I terrified Becca on a ride something that's similar to that.
No, okay, do tell now in front.
Of Yeah, all, it's a Disney ride, and so I will be a little careful with how I describe it. But it was a ride that was new to me by the time when we went there, and it was a ride where you ride a magic carpet. Can you imagine what property it's connected to? All right? So this particular ride, it's similar to other very simple rides that go in a circle, and then you can pull a lever or push a button and make the car go up or down. Right, you can control the height at which you are going around in a circle. And that's all this ride does is go around in a circle, except the magic carpet one at Disney World has one control that controls how high you go, and then the back seat has a second control that controls the pitch of the carpet so you can tilt it. So I had one arm behind my partner and the other hand I had in front of us controlling the vertical stuff, and I reached back with my fingers to touch the other control and I used it to change the pitch and scared the hell out of her. She thought the ride was coming down. I was like, no, no, no, it was me. It was me. It's a miracle that we're still married today.
Yeah. I rode a similar ride the last time I went to the House of Mouse. That was you get into a package erm who does feather aided flight? And my controls didn't work because I was going to face my fear on this children's ride of going up high because the astro orbiter, I can't do, yes, going it's too tall, and you do you feel like you're going to fall out of this thing. So I was like, and I end up like holding on to the side. We're actually using our canvas today, so Jonathan can see. I'm just like grasping like this the entire time on the right.
It's incredibly informative her performance.
Yes, yes, so I tried to do it, but my control was broken and I couldn't get more than maybe three feet off the ground.
Yeah, so you don't really. I mean the only time you would go up is in that one part of the ride where like everybody did you go up when everybody else went up for the very end of the right, not even then? Oh wow, and that I've got two of those, right, they've got.
Yeah, it's air conditioned in the queue, which is lovely.
Oh, it's so much better than what it used to be. Like that was the ride that all the little kids wanted to ride. But because the capacity of the ride is so small and each each cycle lasts like a couple of minutes, it's not super long, but it starts to add up when you're you know, five hundred people back in line and only like twelve people get to go at a time, It's it gets rough.
Yeah. Yeah, but I wasn't there for me, so it's fine. Everybody else had fun. But yeah, I'm sure there are a lot more geeky places that I've gone that I'm just not remembering offhand. I was always the person who is trying to get involved. I always wanted to be involved in whatever that sky thing was.
Yeah yeah, I mean, like, I'm okay with some stuff, but active is more rewarding, I think, you know, like I feel the same way. The other places that come to mind are ones that, like Kennedy Space Center is phenomenal. Everyone should go there if you get a chance. It is inspirational to see how enormous these machines are that have taken people to outer space. It is like it makes me well up because I get so emotional just thinking about how much work went into making that happen and how phenomenal an achievement that is, because we just don't even think about it now, like we've got people up in space in the International Space Station, and it's just like, you know, it's been generation more than a generation, a couple of generations since we send people to the Moon, So it's easy to just sort of take it for granted. But when you see that stuff in person and you think about it, it's just to me, it really gets me emotional. And then I also get emotional when I go to really cool roadside places and Florida, like Gator Land.
I haven't been to Gator Land. I'm glad that makes you emotional. I have, however, been to the Kennedy Space Station. I forgot about that. But my first trip to Disney and it was in fifth grade and we stopped there as well, and I remember taking a bus down and I remember getting astronaut ice cream yep, Like we drove there, but then we had to take a bus down. But I like it was really incredibly cool. Yeah, no, it was super neat.
It's super super interesting. And yeah, we're planning on stopping by there on our trip when we go later this year, we're gonna stop by and go to the Kennedy Space that are, assuming that the weather is all right on the day we're going, because it is. It's just one of those experiences that I think really is again, it's like educational and there's stuff to do, and like I said, like when you see what people are capable of achieving when they work together for a goal that most people would have said was impossible when they were first trying to do this, it's just it'll take your breath away. It's phenomenal. But yeah, that's kind of a I mean, I'm sure we could both come up with like dozens of other examples if we sat here long enough, But we both have stuff what we need to do.
Yeah, Oh, Lego Store in New York. It is technically a store, but it's so much more.
Okay, I haven't been there, so I'll take your word for it, but I'm sure it all snaps into place.
Very very clover. If you all have been someplace that's cool and geeky that we haven't mentioned, and you want to share. Let us know. I'm always looking for places to travel to personally, you know, at least getting back into it now. But we love to hear from you. And so if you do want to write us, Jonathan, how do they do that?
You're gonna have to go to your closest children's science musicum, and you're going to find a device there that will slowly build an electrostatic charge in your body. You're going to have to put your hands on that device and it's going to make every hair on your body stand on end, but you still have to keep on holding on to it until you can feel almost like a tingling sensation in your teeth and you'll be able to taste the electricity. And at that point, I'm going to need you to close your eyes count to five, and then when you open your eyes, you will see static that will take the form of my body and I will ask you what your question is, and you will ask it and I will answer you, and you'll awake with a shock.
I didn't know you were either the hero or villain of the comic book Young Dylan.
Yeah, I'm more like middle aged Dylan.
Not here, so uh, there's anyhow, Yeah, and if you don't wanna if I don't know why you wouldn't want to go to a science museum and experience electricity, Jonathan. But if that's not possible for you, you can reach out to us on social media on Facebook, Instagram, and discord. We are a large ner drum collider on Twitter, uh oh, and I guess on on threads. We're also large du drug Clutter, though I'm gonna be real honest, I don't visit there much. On Twitter where llenc underscore podcast. You can go to our website www dot Larger drunk clider dot com to get uh the link to our discord and if that doesn't work, or if you just want to send us a longer message, you can email us. Our email is large neur drum Pod at gmail dot com. We really love you listening, We really love hearing from you. And until next time. I have been Aerial that's a mouse playing basketball casting.
And I have been Jonathan Zappy Zappy. Strickland. The Large nerdron Collider was created by Aerial Castings and produced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted, published again, cursed at by Jonathan Strickland. Music by Kevin McLeod of incomptech dot com MHM I thought
