I went to Disneyland for a short while last week. I found out an excellant way to not pay for parking, especially if I’m not going to be there for long. You can park in the Downtown Disneyland lot for free for the first 3 hours! So if you only anticipate to be in Disneyland for about 3 hours, park there and take the monorail right next to the lot to land right in Tomorrowland. If you do end up staying over 3 hours, you can drive out and come back in and start the 3 hours over again. <: P. Or just pay the 6 bucks every hour after that. It’s 11 bucks to park in the all-day lots as of this writing. <: x

The newer attraction I went to see this time was the House of the Future. I was a little unimpressed. It’s not really “House of the Future“. It’s more like “House of the Now-if-you-have-a-lot-of-money-to-spare-and-don’t-mind-the-electricity-costs“. There were just a couple innovative ways to use technology we already have now and a mass abundance of the same concepts that filled the home making electricity the blinding cost in my eyes.

This is the living room with a nice glass screen that reflects everything.

And this is the back. <: / Seems a little unnecessary to me.

This is the kitchen. There really wasn’t much innovation for the kitchen specifically. Just a bunch of older model HP Touchsmarts all over the place. I wouldn’t mind having one, but two in the same kitchen? @_@

And yes, a lot of digital photo frames EVERYWHERE. This was on the piano. I suspect they hid all the cords inside the piano. Their solution for the home was “if there is an empty space, put a digital photo frame there” and “cover the walls with huge monitors that displayed photos of real art pieces”.

Supposedly the fun part of the home for entertaining guests.

This might be the only thing I actually wanted to steal from the house. I like that the Yamahas keep the silhouette of the cello. There are lots of electric celli out there that just look like a stick. Ick.

This was the girl’s room. I think the image is project from behind and the guy there said that the screens are all controlled from the girl’s laptop so she can customize it herself. That’s kind of cool. I know how I would fill up my media wallpaper…(full sized pictures of Takeshi Kaneshiro, Keanu Reeves, and Audrey Hepburn)

Who needs all those tiny digital photo frames when you have this anyway? She also had a “mirror” which was actually a video from a camera pointed at you when you stand in front of the “mirror” and you could try on digital outfits…that’s a pretty neat idea.

A boy’s room, Peter Pan themed. This hired guy had to read the Peter Pan story over and over again while the images in the “window” and on the pirate ship sail behind him changed.

I tried out the Microsoft surface. There were a bunch there too. Sometimes it wasn’t so responsive.

Here I am messing around with it.

A dining table of four Surfaces. At one point they were all showing a video of a rock pond that rippled when you touched the surface of the “water”.

The conclusion of this home is that it would be futuristic and cool if all this was totally normal for every home to have. Like, if the prices were brought down ridiculously low and you could find all this in every home.

This was on the second floor, out of the Home of the Future. We have a couple of these at every mall now.

Play Pirates of the Caribbean Online! I ran around yelling “I’m stuck at Disneyland!” and people came up to me and said “Do you need help?” People actually play this game?!

Segway training. Funny to watch.

This is the new monorail being tested out, the Mark VII. It will officially start next Spring. It’s a cool blue metallic color with purplish tinted windows. The Mark V has been working since 1986. Don’t ask me what the Mark VI is.

Here it is running. Zoooooom.

I love the Disneyland handstamp. It smells like lemons. I keep smelling it like it’s crack. And that says “TIGGER” for your information.