And then on to my humor blog, which I've actually got written through to Monday and have planned out for a whole day after that, if you can imagine.
- Everything There Is To Say About Landing On An Asteroid, last week's big piece.s
- Me, In Two Memories, One Of Which Does Not Exist and all of which is true.
- Statistics Saturday: Eight Embarrassing Things Of My Past
- What’s Going On In The Phantom (Sundays)? Is The Rat Dead YET? May – August 2018
- Looking Back: Being Unaware Of Stuff
- The Popeye Two-Reelers Reused: Two I Can’t Show You or even watch myself, but that doesn't stop my talking about them as if I had seen them anytime recently.
- In Which I Have To Take Back Nice Stuff I Said About Michigan’s Secretary Of State because they didn't think a process through is why.
- Everything There Is To Say About Making Art, this week's big piece.
And let's show off the good stuff.
The thing that brought us to iPlay: that red thing on the right is a roller coaster! It's a little figure-eight spinning coaster like we encountered at Pirate's Castaway. It doesn't go very high or very fast, but it spins like crazy and you get about 400 circuits of the track.
Mock highway sign used to direct people around the place. It's made of a bunch of rooms and stands and such to suggest a Shore town. You can see some of the food stalls in the distance and compare them to, like, Casino Pier or Ocean City pictures.
Kiddie carousel inside the place. It's too small for adults to ride; the model would fit in any mall that would like a ride in its food court but doesn't want one of those double-deckers like the Freehold Raceway Mall can support.
Small pendulum ride, on the left, that still seems like it gets precariously close to the ceiling when upside-down. In the distance on the right, a ``Tilly'', icon of George Tilyou, the man who in the late 19th and early 20th centuries successfully pioneered the concept of ``fun'' as a thing Americans might have and creating ``enjoyment'' and ``happiness'' as feelings that people could experience.
Fox figure, possibly a retired animatronic, set up as decoration in some of the upper rafters at iPlay America. Possibly that far away so that it doesn't take up valuable floor space. Possibly so that it's only in retrospect you try to figure out whether his head connects to his torso and, if it does, how.
Loading station of iPlay's roller coaster, Freedom Rider. You can see the spinning car right up front and some of the return leg of the small (it's only 14 feet high) as well as just how close it gets to the wall.
The indoors of iPlay America is done up to look like a town, more or less. And then it's got this slight oddity. They want somewhere with rentable lockers, OK. So they themed it to ... New York City subway station? All right, so, that, then.
And looking out onto iPlay's fake boardwalk. One of the operators of whichever the heck concession on the left is there came over to talk with us. He spotted our roller coaster T-shirts and asked if we were there to get our [ roller-coaster riding ] credit, and we talked about coasters we'd been on, particularly the one at Casino Pier that was on 
bunny_hugger's shirt.
Another ``street'' inside iPlay, featuring the boxed trees with Christmas lights. The pinball games are off an alley to the left at about mid-depth in the picture.
Trivia: Between 1856 and 1903 United States merchants claimed 94 islands, cays, coral heads, and atolls under the terms of the Guano Islands Act. The Department of State ratified the country's claim to 66 of them. Nine remain under United States control. Source: 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, Charles C Mann.
Currently Reading: Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America, Michael Ruhlman.
PS: Reading the Comics, August 11, 2018: Strips For The Week Edition, with a modest set of last week's comics.
