January 28, 2008 - John and Lee’s Idiosyncratic, Peripatetic, Unscientific Panegyric to Disneyland and California Adventure

I always said that if I ever lived in Southern California, I’d get a Disneyland yearly passport. I’d heard that they gave Southland residents a special deal. Well, it took us a while, but we finally looked into it.

February 4, 2008 - John and Lee’s Idiosyncratic, Peripatetic, Unscientific Panegyric to Disneyland and California Adventure Part 2: California Adventure

There’s not anything actually wrong with California Adventure. It’s lovely, done with the fanatical attention to detail that is the Disney trademark.

February 7, 2008 - John and Lee’s Idiosyncratic, Peripatetic, Unscientific Panegyric to Disneyland and California Adventure Part 3: Holiday Season in the Magic Kingdom

I don’t know when they started doing this, but these days beginning somewhere in, I think, early October, the entrance plaza and Town Square and, to an extent, Main Street and the Central Hub are extensively redecorated for the holidays of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

February 12, 2008 - John and Lee’s Idiosyncratic, Peripatetic, Unscientific Panegyric to Disneyland and California Adventure Part 4: Visit #6

Savings to date: $834!!! That ain’t chump change. Of course, you could point out that we could have saved $182 by never going at all … and I’d call you a silly spoilsport. Don’t you like to have fun?

February 27, 2008 - John and Lee’s Idiosyncratic, Peripatetic, Unscientific Panegyric to Disneyland and California Adventure Part 5: California Adventure Revisited

There is an attraction called Golden Dreams, located in the Bay Area part of the Golden State area of California Adventure.  

March 4, 2008 - John and Lee’s Idiosyncratic, Peripatetic, Unscientific Panegyric to Disneyland and California Adventure Part 6: A Walk-on Day at the Parks

A perfect day at the parks is probably impossible, because it will involve some trade-offs. A perfect day would be 72 degrees, windless, cloudless. But if the weather is that perfect, the crowds increase.

Some of you may have seen this photo that’s been circulating on the Internet ....

Varley's response to John Cleese's letter to the citizens of the United States of American ....

March 24, 2008 - John and Lee’s Guide to Disneyland - Part 7: Pixarland

Stop the presses! Hold the phone! You’ve got mail! Disney’s California Adventure is getting a new parade … and we were invited to see the preview!

The sleepy little town of Sierra Madre is off the beaten trail, wedged as it is between Arcadia, Monrovia, and Pasadena, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. But not so very long ago it was at the center of a struggle for the very survival of humanity.

If the above acronym soup is confusing to you, let me translate: BCAM is the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, and LACMA is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (We Angelenos say it as “The Bee-cam at the Lackma.”) BCAM is a new building at LACMA, the first part of a three-phase expansion plan. It opened in February.

A few days ago we were driving around and I stopped at a red light behind a car with a South Carolina plate. In case you haven’t seen one, it is mostly light blue with a palmetto tree in the center. Across the top is this legend: “Smiling Faces. Beautiful Places.”

June 6, 2008 - John and Lee’s Guide to Disneyland - Part 8: Walt Disney Treasures

In 2001 the Disney company released four sets of DVDs in metal boxes, called Walt Disney Treasures, and has been bringing them out yearly ever since, in what they refer to as “waves.” There are now seven waves.

It’s been a while since we went on a celebrity body hunt, so when other business called us down to the lower reaches of Culver City, we decided to visit this graveyard, which is rich in famous bones. It’s also a Jewish cemetery, like Mount Sinai, which always affords a few surprises.

September 6, 2008: St. Francis Dam