ROSWELL, N.M. - Businesses here have been cashing in on the UFO craze for years — paintings and replicas of UFOs and space aliens adorn downtown buildings, and even the McDonald’s and Wal-Mart are UFO- and space-themed.
Now city officials want to take it to another level with a UFO-themed amusement park, complete with an indoor roller coaster that would take passengers on a simulated alien abduction.
“Nobody will be harmed and everybody will be returned, hopefully, in the same shape,” concept designer Bryan Temmer said Friday.
The park, dubbed Alien Apex Resort, could open as early as 2010.
In other amusement park news:
Maverick, Cedar Point's 17th coaster, will open months late after a major redesign. The heartlineroll inversion, widely believed to be the ride's most exciting element, had to be removed when testing determined G-forces on that section of track were excessively high.
Opening this year with its heartline roll intact is the most talked about new coaster for 2007: Dollywood's MysteryMine. The first of its kind in the U.S.- a Gerstlauer Euro-fighter with a 95° drop- Mystery Mine is earning fevered praise from coaster enthusiasts for its compact thrill-packed layout, innovative design and elaborate theming. I'll be riding this puppy in a couple of weeks and I am so excited I could pee myself.
Bambi Woods is one of adult cinema's most enduring mysteries. A pert blonde with pretty girl-next-door looks, she starred in Debbie Does Dallas, the most successful x-rated film of all time. Afterwards she made three more movies then vanished from the public eye. Rumors ran rampant as to her fate. She died of a drug overdose. She was snuffed by the mafia who controlled the industry. She was killed while having sex with a horse for a film called Debbie Does Farmland. A recent documentary about Debbie Does Dallas focused on Bambi's disappearance and the filmmaker's thwarted attempts to locate her.
I am fascinated with all things related to seventies adult films and have read most everything in print about Bambi. So of course I was thrilled to hear that she is alive and well, married for over twenty years and raising her teenagers in blessed anonymity. She recently gave an interview to YesButNoButYes that debunked much of the documentary and just about every word of her Wikipedia entry:
I was happy to see that Things My Boyfriends Says finally made some new posts, or at least issued some new RSS feeds. It's a funny blog. My favorite quote:
"You shouldn't buy me things. Save your money for unicorn rides or whatever it is girls spend money on."
And by the way, if you're not using an RSS feed reader yet, what's wrong with you? They allow you to subscribe to your favorite websites so that all updates are sent to your inbox. I have only used Google Reader- the most idiot-proof of the bunch- for a few months and it has changed my life, people. I can't imagine surfing the innertubes any other way.
You need a feed reader. Period. You can take a tour of Google Reader here.
Check out this pic from a surprise concert Prince did in London. Apparently the story behind the picture is that his purple majesty brought a couple of fans onto the stage. One got a little too close (some audience members are reporting the fan actually grabbed Prince face and kissed it), so as a joke Prince dropped to the ground and put up his hands. But that’s when the chick decided to go the extra mile and mount him. Cue bodyguards to haul crazy fan off to concert jail. It makes for a great Kodak moment–Get it framed for your jail cell, crazy fan!–but still, this never should have happened. Doesn’t the woman understand that this is not how you treat Prince? He is a tiny man, for God’s sake. Straddling him is like straddling a young boy. The fan’s lucky it was concert security who took her away and not Chris Hanson. Let’s not let something like this ever happen again, people. For future reference, if you’re ever in a situation where you see Prince on the ground, these are the acceptable things you can do:
* Help him up. (Gently. Remember, he’s tiny. He probably has fragile wrists.) * Offer him a Band-Aid. He might have skinned a knee. * Chastise the ground. Make the ground really regret whatever it did to make Prince fall. * Get him a pillow. You never know, Prince may just be on the ground because he’s tired and wants a nap. * Spray paint the ground around him purple. It will make Prince more comfortable. * Call Carmen Electra. Prince created her. She’ll know what to do. (Note: This is the only situation in which you should take advice from Carmen Electra.) * Call Life Alert. This is what you do anytime you see a frail person go down. You can do this pressing the button on the pendant Prince will most likely have around his neck. The button will signal the Life Alert monitoring center, which will get Prince help fast.
Y'all should know by now I can't let a Prince-related news item go unmentioned. NME reports:
Prince is set to launch his own perfume.
The name of the fragrance, 3121, is also the name of his last studio album, which was released in 2006.
According to official site 3121perfume.com, it's described as "a kaleidoscope of rich florals...Xquisite (sic), Mysterious, Xotic (sic)".
The perfume is set to go on sale on July 7...
As previously reported Prince will perform in London this summer for 21 nights, kicking off with seven shows at the 02 Arena on August 1, 3, 4, 7, 10, 11 and 14 as part of the Earth Tour.
Only true fanatics like me will know this is not Prince's first foray into the world of fragrance. In 1995 he released Get Wild, a perfume named after his New Power Generation single. (You can hear it here.) Apparently the perfume stunk to high heaven but it's becoming a collector's item.
Normally people get away with murder at my job. My manager Dick was on the phone with a customer today guffawing about "banging some Oriental chick in Fort Worth" and doubling over with laughter to hear her Texan accent. Dick makes vulgar and offensive remarks to customers on a regular basis, all in full earshot of the boss's office. Lois has a fluttery, high-strung hissy if any work gets assigned to her and makes every attempt to dump her work onto other people. Kurt does absolutely nothing but surf eBay all day and no longer even keeps up the pretense of looking busy.
But today, in a shocking reversal, someone in my office actually paid for his misdeeds. Maybe things are finally shaping up at HappyTech.
You'll remember Irv, my coworker who had a large stash of porn saved to a company computer. He was never disciplined because it couldn't be proven he was the culprit, but as a result we had our web-surfing privileges taken away temporarily and now the boss watches us all more closely. Everyone on the help desk developed a seething resentment of Irv, exacerbated by the vast disparity in our salaries. (Thanks for spreading that around, Dick.) The received wisdom used to be that Irv is Teflon. Nobody else in the office can do his job and firing him would prove disastrous.
Apparently his behavior has become more erratic lately though. There have been murmurs of odd behavior at meetings, his punctuality has faltered and the customers he trains have been calling the help desk with all sorts of bizarre misconceptions he planted in their heads. Last Friday morning Irv called in and said he'd be running a few minutes late, then he never showed up or called back. Nobody has ever done anything like that at HappyTech in the years I have worked there. Furthermore, when our manager tried to call him both the home and cell numbers he provided were wrong numbers.
He was back today but left at lunchtime. I assumed he had another off-site meeting until Dick told me, "He has been suspended without pay for the remainder of the week but I can't say more." Dick slings every bit of gossip he can get his paws on so if he can't say more something major is going down. Another indication: people are being cross-trained to do Irv's job. Looks like he's not so indispensable anymore.
