As is now traditional, let me list the essays that ran on my humor blog this past week:
- Everything there is to say about IP addresses, last week's long-form piece, about computer hardware.
- Why It's Worth Having A Land-Line Phone Even Today, from a dumb thing that actually happened.
- Statistics Saturday: How I Feel About January or how I'm never satisfied.
- What's Going On In The Amazing Spider-Man? When is Spider-Man coming out of reruns? November 2019 – January 2020 and it's not coming out of reruns, but we're not ready to admit that just yet.
- Statistics 2019: What Was Read Here, And How Much, Back Then, as this is the month I get two self-investigative recap posts instead of just one.
- 60s Popeye: Jingle Jangle Jungle, which is about the right subject line here, thoughts about a cartoon so weird I almost don't know how to respond to it.
- In the era of surveillance politics in which I'm not sure whether I'm complaining about being spied upon, or that it's being done so incompetently.
- Everything There Is To Say About Going Outside, this week's long-form piece, about not being inside.
Now let's finish off that train ride at Lakeside Amusement Park.
A look across Lake Rhoda showing the Cyclone, and --- you can just make out the peaks --- the Staride and the Tower of Jewels. We failed to take this ride after dark, unfortunately, but in the setting sun you can start to see why these would have defined the skyline for the park and maybe more of why Lakeside hasn't taken down the corpse of Staride.
View from the train of the turnaround for Cyclone.
And peering down the far end of the tracks of Cyclone, as seen from the train ride.
Rolling gate closing off an access road that the train runs over. Also, columns that really look like they're supposed to hold up something but are now free-standing lights.
Coming back up on Staride as seen from the railroad.
The train rolls past the base of Staride, from the otherwise inaccessible side.
The train going past those midway games from the first walk into the park, before we got our tickets.
And getting off the train! Here's a view of the engine, the Silver Speed, with its Century Of Progress lines and wonderful shiny side panels.
A look back at the train cars, so you can see what we were riding in. Still very Century Of Progress in its design, despite the simplicity of the elements.
The Skoota Boats bumper-boat ride, made from the remains of a Shoot-the-Chutes.
bunny_hugger looking around to see if she can get some snaps of the flower bed.
She risks it!
Trivia: In 1935 the Citizens' Budget Committee alleged that Charles Norris's coroner's office had pocketed up to $400,000 from citizens for routine paperwork over his twenty years heading the department. Investigation found that the actual amount taken for providing documents was closer to $4,000, split among the typing pool. Source: The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Deborah Blum.
Currently Reading: Disney's Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park that Changed The World, Richard Snow.
