Do you need a trash can exactly like the trash cans at Disneyland?

The Anxiety of Influence, Part 2:

The Disneyland original in The Haunted Mansion.

At Europa Park in Germany, in the Château Hanté Geisterschloss.

I loves me some Disneyland ripoffs. If you know of any I haven't covered, email me!

"Walt Disney World has claimed 162 acres on three parcels of property in Osceola County as farmland for years because it says it has cattle grazing there. Disney currently saves about $54,000 a year in property taxes by claiming the parcels as agricultural land.

"Workers in the Osceola property appraiser's office grew suspicious more than a year ago when the agricultural parcels became overgrown and fencing went unrepaired. Representatives from the appraiser's office made unannounced visits to the parcels several times and found no cattle.

"It was only when workers from the appraiser's office scheduled a formal meeting with a Disney representative last August that they finally found cattle on the land."

For the past week, England has been experiencing train delays because of fears the tracks may buckle in the “extreme heat”.

(That was your cue to say, "HOW HOT WAS IT?")

95° F. That'll buckle train tracks?

So how do they cool down passengers on the London Underground? They don't. They don't know how. It's an old system, oldest in the world actually -- built in 1863, long before air conditioning. The Mayor is offering a 100,000 pound prize to whoever can solve the problem, so get crackin'.

I am informed by by my London correspondent that when you hear "Services between Brixton and Oxford Circus have been suspended due to a passenger being taken unwell," it is a euphemism for, "Someone committed suicide by jumping in front of the train."

Here are some other reasons for delays.

The Giant Dipper is the first wooden roller coaster I ever rode. My first trip was sometime in the mid-1970s, when it was briefly called The Earthquake; which is a pretty lousy name for a Southern Californian roller coaster. It was built in the 1920s, SNO (Standing, Not Operating) through the 1980s, and restored in the early 1990s.

Here is the official web page.

In my quest to hear every bit of amusement park and World's Fair classical music, I recently got an MP3 copy of Ferde Grofe's World's Fair Suite, written for the 1964 New York World's Fair. Man, is it AWFUL! Grofe was known for being literal-minded, so the section in the midway works okay, but maybe I only think that because I like carnivals. The rest is relentless. There are quite a few stretches where a motif is repeated over and over... and over... with exactly the same orchestration, seemingly just to pad things out.

There aren't a lot of Google references to it, but here is someone who agrees with me.

Professor A.G. Gertsacov examines one of his star performers in THE ACME MINIATURE CIRCUS.

I am somewhat heartened by the idea that Hong Kong Disneyland will consist of only four lands -- Main Street, Adventureland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. No Frontierland, no Critter Country, no New Orleans Square and no Toontown. No Liberty Square, for that matter. How cheesy is that?

By the way, every Haunted Mansion so far has been in a different land:

Disneyland: New Orleans Square
Walt Disney World: Liberty Square
Tokyo Disneyland: Fantasyland
Disneyland Paris: Frontierland

So, if they want to keep the tradition going, Hong Kong Disneyland will have to put it on Main Street, in Adventureland or (and this is my choice) in Tomorrowland.

The good news: Seattle's getting a new monorail. The Bad news: they're getting rid of the old one.

Thanks and a tip of the monorail conductor's hat to Steve Mandich.

At one time, Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson and Peter Gabriel wanted to build a theme park to be called Real World [1] [2] [3].

Stalin's World “combines the charms of a Disneyland with the worst of the Soviet gulag.” Read about it at CNN and Fortune. What parts of Disneyland and a Soviet gulag would you combine?

Miniature train wreck kills engine driver. At 1130 BST today, a miniature train collided with a blue Ford Escort on a level crossing of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. Kevin Crouch, 31, a seasonal light railway driver was killed. The woman driving the car and her baby were treated for minor injuries. Of the 50 passengers, 20 suffered cuts and bruises.

A railway spokesman said the line's crossing points had flashing lights but no gates, "so at this stage it appears it has been an accident." The railway will be closed Monday during the police investigation, and may re-open Tuesday.

The RH&DR opened in 1927 as the "World's Smallest Public Railway" covering a distance of 13.5 miles.

"The year was 1927, and she was a 30-year-old, single male, a workaholic with no family, running an amusement park with a merry-go-round filled with children playing." Except... not really.