What Gets You Out of Bed?

One of the worst things about the late fall and winter is getting up when it's dark outside.  Getting up is hard enough but when it still looks like nighttime outside it's that much harder. 

One thing that helps is a good alram clock. I have an alarm clock that I can plug my iphone into and wake up to any song I want. I have a few of those tree hugging hippy tracks of nature sounds.  Those are ok to wake up to but they are not as good as something else.

There is one track I set as my wake up song more often than anyone else.  It seems like the perfect wake up track.  It's not too loud or soft.  It's soothing yet not enough to put you back to sleep.

What is my wake up track?  Let me give you a few hints:

1 - It's from a former Disney World attraction.

2 - The attraction was located in Epcot.

3 - The attraction was located in Future World.

4 - The attraction was located in Future World East.

A true Deek has now arrived at two attractions.  Here are a couple more hints.

5 - The attraction allowed you to choose your own ending.

6 - The attraction was replaced my Mission Space.

You have the attraction now but what track could it be?

7 - The track was played during one of the endings.

8 - It's not the ocean ending.

9 - It's not the desert ending.

A majority of the people reading this blog now know what track I wake up to.  For those of you who never rode Horizons or who don't remember the endings - the track is "Space."

There are a number of Disney songs that are decent to wake up to.  There are also some that are AWFUL but they will wake you up.  For instance "There's a Great Big Beatiful Tomorrow" is just punishing to wake up to.  The way it starts could wake someone out of a coma.

If you've never heard the song you can listen to it here.  It's the background music of this Disney slideshow.

What gets you out of bed or what would you want to wake up to?

TouringPlans.com's Lines Review Part One

I'm doing a two part review of the app from www.touringplans.com. The first part is will focus on Lines as a planning tool. The second part will focus on Lines in action.

Lines is an application / website which provides a combined historical and real time data on wait times in all of Disney Worlds theme parks. The initial wait times provided are based on historical data. However, the times can be updated by users who are in the parks giving you real time feedback on how long you can expect to wait in line.

Lines was not developed as a planning tool. It was developed for active use. The interesting thing is Lines turns out to be a very useful planning tool. TouringPlans has a crowd calendar which estimates what the crowd levels will be like on any given day. Lines displays that estimate but it also lets you see how that translates into actual ride times. It also lets you see why TouringPlans provides a recommended park. You can compare the crowds between the recommended parks and parks to avoid. All of this information helps you to determine if you really want to hit the park with extra magic hours or go to the recommended park.

Lines is also an amazing tool for creating your own touring plan. You can pick the rides you want and see what the wait time is at different times. With this information you can make a killer touring plan that would make Len Testa jelous.

In part two I win explain my experience when using lines in the parks and updating rides times. As long as my wife doesn't kill me, I'll be sending an update for every ride I go on.

Apple's Tablet is Out and It's Called....The iPad?!?

Good grief Charlie Brown what was Apple thinking? The iPad?!? Seriously? I'm sorry but it sounds like a high tech feminine product. I'd love to know who came up with that. What kind of thought process was involved?

If I can ignore the name I'm a little disappointed. There is no USB connector. For it's size that's unacceptable. The pricing is messed up. On one wants the one with only 16gb. We want the big one but we don't want to pay that much. Oh and I have to pay extra for 3g and get it its own data plan. Fantastic!

My guess is the price will drop over the next few months when they see the response they get and future versions will transform it from a glorified iPod Touch into a nice little gadget.

I still have no plans to buy it. Lines, Disney Dining, and the Disney Maps look just fine on my iPhone. Plus lugging that around Disney World wouldn't be fun.

Massive Fire in NC Linked to Podcast Personality

The cause of a massive fire that broke out in North Carolina last week has been found. It appears that an iPhone was abused to the point combusting.

“It appears the iPhone was altered to boost its battery power and get better reception,” stated a local fire marshal.

The iPhone was owned by a one Leonard Testa, coauthor of the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, Professional Van Halen Fan, WDW Today Personality, and Tequila Guzzling Alien. It appears the alterations were made in an effort to get better 3G reception while in doors. The primary reason for wanting the better reception appears to be improving the Mouse World Radio stream onto the iPhone.

Mr. Testa is a known MWR addict and has been through multiple stints in rehab to break him from the habit. All efforts had failed and in an effort to get a better fix Mr. Testa pushed the iPhone beyond its limits causing it start to glow and then combust.

Witnesses said that Mr. Testa knew the iPhone was overheating. One even said in a statement “He had a frying pan and was using the iPhone as a hot plate to cook breakfast while singing along to the Splash Mountain Medley. At first I thought it was cool. Who wouldn’t want a phone that can be a hot plate? But then it burst into flames and ignited the cooking oil. Before we knew it the entire place was up in flames.”

Mr. Testa escaped the flames but left the scene before authorities arrived. Witnesses said he jumped in his car and took off for the nearest Apple store so he could replace his iPhone and get his MWR fix.

The damage from the fire is estimated to be 3.2 million dollars.

If you didn’t know the above story is factious. Len Testa is not an alien (that’s debatable). He did not jerry rig his iPhone to get better 3G reception to listen to MWR (but if he could he would). He has not gone to rehab for an MWR addiction (whether he should or not is another issue). He does not use his iPhone as a hotplate but he has admitted that he’s gotten it hot enough to fry an egg while listening to MWR.

The Apps

I was excited when Apple opened its app store. In my opinion the app store is the biggest cash cow since the iPod – iTunes release. Over one billion apps have been downloaded. There is an app for everything. If you can name it, there is a chance that an app has been developed for it.

There are an ever growing number of Disney World / Disney Land applications that have been released for use with the iPhone and iPod Touch. I’ll say up front that a majority of these apps are average at best and could easily be replaced by a better app.

The first group of apps are what I call the map apps. They are basically a crummy map of one of the parks or areas with some info on them. The maps themselves are rather ugly. They could stand to be sharper and cleaner in appearance. On the maps are points of interest. They include shops, restaurants, and attractions. When you click on one it will bring up some information. The information is very limited. You can use a link from there to get more info but it will take you online to wikkipedia or allears.net.

There is a somewhat hidden feature that is possibly the best feature on the map apps. If you click the “more” button another button will appear at the top that says calendar. This will bring up a full calendar for the next three months. This feature alone might make it worth the 99 cents for each map.

There are a lot of places where this app could be improved. One – a better looking map. Two – have better descriptions and don’t require internet access for it. Three add ride reviews. Four have a weather forecast included.

A step up from those apps are the Notecast apps. The two I will mention are the WDW Secrets and the WDW Guide. The Secrets has a lot of great information on it. A good portion of the things they mention I’d never heard of before. The Guide is good. It has a lot of information on a lot of different subjects. It also has a bunch of photos too. Both apps are only 99 cents through iTunes.

Now that the other apps are out of the way we can talk about the best Disney app available right now. By far the best Disney app is WDW Dining. This app is easily worth five dollars but they only charge 99 cents for it. This app is amazing. It gives detailed information about every place you can get food in Walt Disney World. It includes price points, full menus, item prices, dining plan participation, locations, and descriptions. Beyond the info this app includes an amazing search function. It lets you search by location. I mean any location. Every single park and resort is listed separately. If you don’t know where the place is located you can search by name too. Once you’ve found the place you want you can click one button to dial Disney Dining to make a reservation. They only way this app could be better, is if it included reviews.

I think this is a prime market. I think that there are a lot of good Disney apps waiting to be built. More and more are being developed and released on a weekly basis. I’m very surprised that Disney hasn’t done more with the app store yet. I also think that this is an amazing opportunity for some of the members of the Disney community to develop some amazing things.