Just like the bootleg Spongebob Squarepants & Spidermen you can "win" at your local county fair, seedy concessionaires offered similar wares back in the 1940s...

Click here for Felix....

"To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride."

-- H. L. Mencken, "Coda," in Smart Set (New York, Dec. 1920; repr. in A Mencken Chrestomathy, pt. 1, 1949).

(See here for more great Mecken quotes.)

A message I just posted to StopGayDays.com

Just wanted to thank you for posting a list of upcoming Gay Day events at various amusement parks. I maintain a blog of amusement park links, and I get a lot of people looking for that information. You might want to post links to the web pages of the organizers of the Gay Day events to make this resource even more useful to gay people like me. Thanks again for this informative resource, and cordial best wishes in your efforts to deny people their right to openly express affection in public.

Millennium Dome Update: Sir Paul McCartney rents it as a practice space, and upsets a cat across the river with the volume. Apology issued to the cat.

Residents ask McCartney to unplug

London environmental health officers have told Sir Paul McCartney to stop giving residents a hard day's night.

Greenwich Council told the ex-Beatle to turn down the volume at his European tour rehearsal after locals complained.

Eric Pemperton, 67, first blamed the noise on a neighbour's stereo, before realising it came from the Millennium Dome across the river from his home.

"I don't care who it is," he said. "I thought it was quite unacceptable and even my cat was disturbed."

"It is bad enough that he arrives every morning in a noisy helicopter," he added.

East London residents said the noise from the Dome rehearsals was travelling across to their homes in the Isle of Dogs, on the other side of the Thames.

But the legendary musician has now agreed to keep the noise down to 92 decibels after health officers paid a visit.

Sir Paul is reported to have paid £250,000 to rent the venue for three weeks as a practice space.

Mr Pemperton said he had to phone environmental health officers when closing his windows and front door failed to block out the din.

"It took me a while to realise the bass was coming from the Dome on the other side of the river. When I realised I called the council.

"They told me: 'It's Paul McCartney'. I said 'So what? He doesn't pay my rates, and if it was me that was doing this I would have been prosecuted'.

A spokesman for Sir Paul said on Thursday: "We love animals and so we're sorry about Mr Pemberton's cat.

"But we're confident that the rest of Europe and Glastonbury will love it when we crank it up again at the end of the month," he added.

For more info on the screwy history of the Millennium Dome, buy my zine on the subject, Dome and Domer, here. (Available for a limited time as a PDF download for a dime and a dime.)

Yay! Laughing Mouse is back, with a joke about Danny's Land!

One year ago this week, I began this blog with a post about Peter Foster's filling station in Petaluma. For my 500th post, here is a follow-up, from the Argus Courier newspaper.

Peter Foster went to work at his Valero gas station for the last time April 30. With the onset of several environmental updates and higher insurance payments, he said he simply cannot afford to stay in business.

"It's real difficult for single station owners to keep afloat with rising costs for the overhead," Foster said. He is leaving behind an 18-year legacy of laughter, fun and creative delight that drew frequenters from miles around.

Peter's Valero gave generously throughout the years to community programs like Hospice, DARE, The Carousel Fund, youth soccer, baseball, Scouts, and the fire and police departments. "When they phoned it was always yes," said Foster.

Foster also plans on finding a new home. He will be moving to Nevada later this year and opening up an auto repair shop, where he will once again decorate with his '50s memorabilia. "Everything in Nevada is about 10 years behind. I'm looking forward to down sizing my stress level and expressing myself artistically. It's time to smell the roses."

The world's most prolific collector of old amusement park bumper cars, Foster plans on developing a calendar documenting his collection of Lusse Auto Skooters, which sits in storage now. He will also have the cars on display at his shop in Nevada and will provide parts and restoration to other bumper car owners.

"I'm taking a risk now. I'm acting on faith, but I believe it will all work out for the best. The glass is always half full -- there's always a miracle around the corner."

I visited his station a couple years back when I was in the Bay Area, and I had a blast. Good luck in your future endeavors, Peter -- I'm sure you'll land on your feet!

From the BBC archives comes this 1998 article on a Chinese Grocery Store Ride


Fast-track shoppers buy ticket to ride



Shop that train:
Chinese customers
try out possible
store of the future.

As China continues to open its business life to the market economy, some new innovations are being deployed that improve on the Western way. In the north of the country, for example, a supermarket boss has literally swept his customers off their feet.

The novel system may look like a rollercoaster ride, but the passengers are not at the funfair: they are about to do the weekly shop. It appears to be the ideal way to take the load off your feet and let the train take the strain out of a visit to the supermarket.

Rail fare: miss the coffee
and you must go round again!

Shopper Zhang Wenjin could not be more enthusiastic. "This is a lot of fun and it's very convenient," she said. "And I don't have to walk alone in the market."

Customers to this supermarket in Shan-yang city, in north China, are transported around its five floors at a soothing pace ... gently plucking groceries from the shelves on the way. But watch out if you forget an item or cannot reach it, for you may have to go all the way around again.

The man who came up with the idea thinks it will catch on in a big way. Supermarket manager Wang Defu said: "We decided on carts as the means of transportation and linked up several floors with railway tracks. This, I think, is quite an innovation."

Not surprisingly, the "market train" is a big hit with shoppers. The service is free and customers say the prices remain competitive; this supermarket just could be the first in which people enjoy being taken for a ride.

Disneyland Pakistan?