Show Me the Way to Go Home
I am on vacation. I’m not happy about it, but here I am.
The particulars of why I’m not happy about it aren’t really important—not on the open internet anyway—but just know that I’m not really a traveler and in the few cases that I am, I like to pick where I’m going.
Instead, I’m on my third trip to Williamsburg, VA, which is nice enough, though I can’t imagine the circumstances that would lead to a fourth trip. Despite my stated dislike for heat and the outdoors, I actually like theme parks quite a bit, though we’re only one day into this trip and having put my creaky, wheezing body through a day at the water park, I’m not so sure I’m going to extract maximum value out of this 7 day pass I bought to Busch Gardens and Water Country, USA.
But I’m also not getting the maximum value out of this hotel room, because the Samsung tv is stuck on Motion Smoothing. “Vacation” to me means unlimited time to work on my little projects, watch movies and catch up on all the video games I bought and haven’t got around to yet. I brought a 5 terabyte hard drive full of lovingly ripped films which all look like absolute shit on this Samsung television. I tried to get it out of hospitality mode, but since I don’t have the actual remote for the tv, that was useless. I also tried to call the front desk to see if anyone could help me, but trying to explain the pains of motion smoothing to someone who doesn’t care about it feels similar to explaining that we could all lift this building 3 inches off the ground if we just concentrate on it. I think I would have gotten a better reception had I marched down there and taken a dump on the counter. At the very least, the would have known what it was.
Still, my handheld pc works though it is bittersweet to play it next to a 55 inch television and a pile of useless adapters. I’m not a man who easily admits defeat, but here I am, defeated.
At least I got to try Hardee’s for the first time.
A Brief Note on Accessibility
The Busch Gardens/Water Country USA Disability Accessibility Program has worked out quite well for me. I swear I wrote about this before, but a cursory search of the archives didn’t turn up anything and I’m on vacation, so I’m not looking any harder than that.
I was in their system from a previous time at the park, so I didn’t even need to break out the doctor’s notes or anything. At Water Country, the gave me a bunch of one time passes for certain rides so I didn’t have to wait in line, though the passes don’t really help with the truly awe-inspiring amount of stairs I had to climb to get to the rides. Still, I got to go on pretty much everything in a reasonable amount of time. I may get maximum value out of that 7 day pass yet!
Things I Like
Every July 4th, I alternating between watching two films that take place on the date: Jaws and The Return of the Living Dead. This year was a Jaws year.
You don’t need me to tell you Jaws is good. It’s one of the best movies ever made. But to switch things up this year, we watched it projected. I bought an LG projector for $200 on eBay back in 2020 when it started to look more and more like my white ass would never see the inside of a movie theater again. As much as I love the look of a 4K OLED television, there’s a special kind of magic to the way that projected light hits the eye, even when it’s just projected on a bedroom wall.
I came very close to packing that projector and bringing it on vacation. That seemed overboard at the time, but now as I type this in the ambient glow of a Samsung television that mocks me with it’s motion interpolation, I know I must always follow my heart.