Friday, August 31, 2007


Holy cow, I'm wearing Bermuda shorts.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Kennywood Memories (for a small price)

Every now and then I run a "Kennywood" search on eBay, and the last time it turned up this. Wow.



When I was a kid, Kennywood Park had these Peanuts themed height signs. If you were as tall as Linus you could ride some rides, mainly the kiddie rides. Then I think Lucy or Snoopy was the intermediate level, and Charlie Brown was the tallest height limit. I think you can see in the photo that it says if you're that tall you can ride the Thunderbolt - that was always the most advanced ride in the park.

After the Peanuts signs they used signs with Kenny the Kangaroo. There's one of those up from this seller too. I also vaguely remember another height sign, it was a boy and I think it looked like Howdy Doody - I don't think it was him, just some redhead with a cap or something. But I did almost all my measurement on the Peanuts signs.

I didn't go on the Thunderbolt until I was about 15, though. I was way taller than Charlie Brown by then, I just thought it was scary.

Since I moved to a different neighborhood two years ago, the right way to go to the Homestead Waterfront shopping area is to go over the Rankin Bridge. As a kid the only reason I went through Braddock and over that bridge was to go to Kennywood. Even now I think of it as the Kennywood bridge. At the end there was a big yellow Kennywood sign pointing left. Same as the small wooden signs you would see all around the city directing you to the park.

I would love to have the Charlie Brown, but it's probably not a $2000 investment for me. Maybe not for other people either, since it didn't sell the first time it was listed. I wonder if I can find an old Kennywood direction sign for a more reasonable price....

Seller's other items:
http://myworld.ebay.com/djcuffin/

Here's a great Kennywood tribute page with lots of old stuff:
http://piacasdad.tripod.com/id84.html

Friday, August 03, 2007

Avatar Sociology 101

NPR has discovered online avatars: Alter Egos in a Virtual World
The story is a little cursory, but it has its moments.

Like the bit about the woman who made her City of Heroes avatar "the biggest, blackest guy I could find" and found out that her fellow players gave her a lot more respect and less lip than when she played with a female avatar. I'm fascinated because it's like a controlled experiment on how people automatically discount what women say just because of how they look.

It makes me wonder about men who use female avatars. Do they think that people discount what they say and do, or are they just too busy staring at their character's boobies to notice? Or do they get caught up in "acting like a girl" and think that's part of the fun? Apparently it's hard for people with privilege to see discrimination even when it's directed at them.

There's also a picture in the story of significantly disabled man with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who plays Star Wars Galaxies as a mysterious, armored (possibly robotic?) fighter. His online avatar is ironically like his real body, except that it's hard metal that hides the avatar to its eyes instead of twisted, immobile flesh encased in medical equipment. Online gaming is a unique social interaction for him, the player says, because he gets treated like an average person online.

This wasn't a new concept for me, but I still feel I should apologize for my somewhat uncharitable reaction: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."