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Aug 12, 2013

Give Us A Good Trailer For Frozen, Disney!

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Back in February, when we were at Walt Disney World for our family vacation, we were excited to see some of the art they were working on for the upcoming Disney animated feature, Frozen. The whole family loves Tangled, and we’ve been anxiously awaiting the next princess film. Seeing that this would be a musical about the Snow Queen, we were immediately excited about it and looked forward to the November release.

Earlier this summer, when I received a notice about the first trailer to promote the film, I was again excited. The day it was released, I clicked through to watch it. And this was what I saw:

Um…what? The wacky antics of a talking snowman and a reindeer on the ice is not what I was expecting.

Nowhere in this trailer did it feature the sweeping score and dramatic songs that were claimed in the exhibit at Hollywood Studios. We didn’t even see the Snow Queen, or her sister, who is to be the actual hero in this story. The animation didn’t reflect the beautiful landscapes we witnessed in the still drawings. Just a snowman and reindeer falling all over the place for a carrot in the snow and on a frozen pond.

I was so disappointed. If I had based my opinion on this trailer alone, I would not be interested in this film at all. It was slapstick humor in the snow with little substance – if I wanted to see that, I’d watch Ice Age on Netflix and save myself a lot of money.

Cordy and Mira saw the trailer, too. They laughed at the silliness, but as far as they were concerned, that’s all there was. They considered it a fun animated short. There was nothing to leave them wanting more.

Disney's FrozenI kept hoping that this was a joke and we’d see a real trailer the next day, or a week later. But we’re nearing the end of the summer now, and this is still the only trailer we’ve been given. And this movie comes out in November, which for movie marketing departments is really just around the corner.

I know more about the upcoming Thor movie (made by Marvel, who apparently doesn’t share its Marketing Department with its parent company, Disney) than I do about Frozen. Where is the marketing to get people excited about this film? Where’s the hook to make people say “ooooh, we are SO going to see that when it comes out!”

Over the weekend, Aaron found that hook. But here’s the kicker: it’s not in English. Meet the international trailer that the rest of the world is being shown for Frozen while those in the US & UK get the slapstick “chase the carrot nose” trailer:

You can also find it here in Japanese.

Now THAT’S the trailer I wanted to see! It draws me into the story, makes me want to find out more about the characters, and dazzles me with some pretty animation. The only thing it’s missing is a small snippet of one of the songs to musically tug on heartstrings in that unique Disney way.

Finding the international trailer and realizing there was no English equivalent has made me wonder what Disney’s plan could be for marketing this film? That first trailer left me completely uninterested and now that I’ve seen the trailer the rest of the world is getting, I can’t help but feel let down.

Do they think US audiences are that dumb that they need to feature the goofy sidekicks to get our interest? Even my kids think the international trailer is more interesting, and they don’t speak French or Japanese. After watching that trailer, both Cordy and Mira asked when we could go see the film – isn’t that what Disney should be aiming for with their trailers? (To be fair, Cordy said it looks a little scary, but she says that about nearly everything.)

I hope Disney plans to get the marketing machine going for this film soon. I’ve been a Disney animated film fan for nearly my entire life, and I want to see continued success with this genre. Now that they’ve shown more at the D23 convention (the official Disney Fan Club convention), I’m hoping we’ll see new trailers featuring the main characters, the story and the music.

Please wow us with a good trailer for Frozen, Disney, and then wow us again with a fantastic movie. I’m trying to hold out hope, but you’re not giving me much to go on so far. Let’s hope the marketing for this is better than the marketing for their live-action films. (coughcoughJOHNCARTERcoughcough)

Filed Under: pop culture, rant ·


May 16, 2013

Being Rich And Entitled Is Not A Disability At Disney

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When we visited Disney World in February, I worried how Cordy would react to the crowds and the lines. She doesn’t like crowds, and she likes waiting in lines even less, especially when those lines are enclosed by barriers in tight spaces. She’ll get fidgety, anxious, and sometimes start to panic. She’ll repeatedly bump into others around her, and if the sensory overload lasts too long, she’ll be a wreck and unable to enjoy the ride when we finally get to the front of the line.

We were told about the Guest Assistance Card (GAC) before our trip and were encouraged to talk to Guest Services when we got to Disney. It’s fairly easy – you tell someone at Guest Services what the nature of the disability is in regards to what accommodations are needed. Based on what you tell them, they provide one of three different GAC passes. The pass is good for your entire stay at all parks, and allows the disabled guest and their family to stay together for any rides.

Disney Guest Assistance CardCordy’s GAC

I was nervous about asking for the card – while Cordy’s autism can make situations difficult, I worried that she wasn’t “disabled enough” to deserve a GAC. (The Guest Services folks were amazingly kind about the whole thing, though.) I was also a little embarrassed about using it at first, feeling like I was cheating by getting to use the Fast Pass entrance instead of the standard lines. I worried we were being judged.

But then I tried to remind myself that it took a lot more energy for us to go from attraction to attraction, and we often needed more downtime for Cordy, so we really weren’t getting to more rides and attractions than any other family in the park. And OH did it make the experience SO much better for our little ball of anxiety! Without that pass, we wouldn’t have been able to get through more than one or two rides at most before she would have felt overwhelmed and been done. Or worse – annoyed everyone else around her and ruined their day. And even with the pass it still wasn’t all roses and butterflies, but it was a huge improvement.

So I was horrified when I read a New York Post story stating that a new trend in visiting Disney for an elite group of rich NYC moms is to hire a disabled person to pose as a “family member” for the day, allowing the family to use that person’s Guest Assistance Card to “skip the lines” and enter through the alternate entrance.

Yes, you read that right. Moms and their families, all perfectly healthy, free of disabilities, cutting their wait times for rides to nearly nothing all because of their newly hired “distant cousin” who is handicapped and has the ability to bypass the general line.

Before you say, “But we all know that the rich can buy their way to the front of the line with anything, so what’s the big deal?” consider this: Disney already has a VIP Tour Guide service the wealthy can pay for that will provide a Fast Pass for rides. The VIP Fast Pass will get them to the front of the line nearly as fast as a GAC access. It costs a little more, but what’s a few more dollars to those with this kind of privilege?

(It’s also possible to reduce your wait time to practically nothing through using the free Fast Pass system and doing a little planning. But I suppose that’s too much work for them.)

No, I don’t think it’s about the money. Rather, it’s about the smug satisfaction of telling your fellow rich moms at the next playdate how you gamed the system and had your own pet “cripple” (ugh, I hate that word, but it gets the sentiment across) to grant you your privilege and make you feel even more special.

Because an official Disney VIP tour guide? That’s something anyone can get! Having your own disabled fake family member, on the other hand, is only for the 1% insiders who know the secret of how to hire them.

What kind of self-absorbed idiot would willingly and knowingly take advantage of an accommodation for the disabled for their own selfish reasons? I can’t wrap my mind around what would assure someone that this was a great idea, other than they’ve lost all shame and humanity in their black hearts. The Evil Queen would be proud.

Beyond that, I’m appalled at the message this sends to their children. They’re being taught that the rules of the world don’t apply to them, and that the struggles of others can be exploited for their own gain. That any obstacle in their way, or any special exception allowed to someone else but not them, can be bypassed by throwing money at it. Good luck when those entitled kids become teenagers and will do anything to get their way.

I worry that behavior like this will force Disney World to tighten its restrictions on the GAC pass, making it harder to obtain and possibly denying some people who really do need it. Few places offer accommodations with such generosity as Disney, but any increase in the abuse of these accommodations might cause them to rethink their policy.

I’d hope that the actions of a few despicable people wouldn’t affect those who legitimately qualify for it, and I also hope Disney can find a way to weed these folks out and shut them down.

Because as much as they’d like to claim it is if it would get them to the front of the line, being an entitled, elitist cheat is NOT a disability.

Filed Under: big issues, rant · Tagged: , , ,


Apr 1, 2013

It’s Not Funny If It Makes Me Panic

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I’ve never been a fan of April Fool’s Day. Pranks just aren’t my thing, and fake stories aren’t much fun for me, either.

There are some April 1 jokes that I know and expect now, and because I expect them I can laugh and enjoy the joke. I always expect Google to release some wild new feature that is completely impossible to do at this time. (Today’s Google Nose is pretty funny.)

I also usually expect my favorite online geek store, ThinkGeek, to send out an email showcasing some amazing new products that really don’t exist. And they delivered again this year. I was especially fond of the Batman family car decal set:

The Play-Doh 3D Printer was also brilliant.

However, one prank this morning left me nearly in a panic. As I settled into my morning routine, I glanced down at the clock in my computer’s taskbar to see what time it was, then briefly continued checking my email for a few seconds before the realization hit my brain: it was 9am!!

(In the morning it takes my brain a few extra seconds for processing.)

I was stunned it was already that late in the morning. Wasn’t it just 7:50am when I was in the kitchen making breakfast? How did I lose an hour of time? I frantically started re-arranging the day’s schedule in my head, trying to make up for the lost hour.

I turned around to check the clock behind me and realized it showed it was 8am. Now I had a dilemma – which was the right time? Did Aaron change the clock in the living room to play a joke on me? (Unlikely, he knows about my strong dislike for pranks.)

Grabbing my iPhone, I silently hoped it would settle the issue and not provide an entirely different time. It matched the clock: 8am. And since it had been with me since my alarm went off, there was no way it was tampered with. My computer had changed its clock to set the time forward an hour on its own. The time was correct last night, when it confirmed it was too late and I needed to shut the computer down and go to bed.

Having my time changed on my computer was NOT funny at all. A quick search of Twitter showed I wasn’t alone in the mysterious April 1 time change. Others have had their systems set forward an hour as well.

I haven’t figured out the cause yet, but I’m blaming Windows 8, just because it seems like the most likely choice. I’ve heard it didn’t change for some Window 8 users, but others did see their clocks advance by one hour.

Operating systems should not be allowed to participate in April Fool’s Day pranks. Internet services like Google, sure, but not your own computer. What’s next? Hiding your My Pictures folder for April 1 so you think all of your photos have vanished?

I’m not laughing.

Filed Under: rant · Tagged:


Aug 7, 2012

What Happened At Home While I Was In NYC

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While I was on a plane to New York last Wednesday, this happened:

severed cable/internet line

That’s the buried cable line for our house, no longer buried and no longer intact. The idiot apartment builders behind us (Ardent Communities, for those who would like to know), having no respect for us or our property, trespassed onto our land and ripped up the top layer of the back property line, about four feet beyond our property line. The grass was torn out, and they cut the cable line, leaving Aaron with no ability to work from home that day.

Why did they do it? They told me yesterday that they had to clear space to put up the fence that should have been in place months ago. This is of course the complete opposite of what they told me several weeks ago, when they promised that nothing on our property would be affected by putting up the fence. They also told me that the cable line was cut because it wasn’t buried, which is a lie – I watched the cable company bury the line years ago. And you can still see where it disappeared into the ground before it got ripped up by their machinery.

They didn’t ask if we could clear our land. They didn’t ask permission to come onto our land. And they didn’t give any notice of doing it. It was trespassing and willful destruction.

Yesterday they tried to say that I was wrong about where the property line was and that really most of what they took out was their land. Um, this stake below? It’s labeled Property Line, and they were the ones who placed it there. I see a hell of a lot of dirt and missing greenery on the left side of that stake, also known as OUR LAND.

(We won’t even get into the health issues I’m suffering resulting from their unwillingness to follow the rezoning guidelines. If I’m forced into another sinus surgery because of the dust, I’ll be providing their address as the responsible party for billing.)

I finally reached my limit yesterday when I watched a Bobcat pick up a few pallets of wood from a spot about 10 feet from my property line to then drive them onto my land and dump them there. A gift of wood? I considered going outside to thank them for the peace offering and asking them to help me carry my new wood planks into our garage, but decided that sarcasm would likely be lost on these guys.

Is it our 5th anniversary already, Ardent/Village Communities? Aww, you shouldn’t have.
(Property line stake, you ask? Hidden behind & to the left of the guy in the photo.)

So instead I took photos and then emailed the City of Columbus contacts I’ve corresponded with before (two city council aides and a person in zoning) asking them for guidance on who to contact to report the damage to our property, the failure of the company to meet yet another deadline that has long passed, and to have the wood removed.

I’d also like to take the time to call out the City of Columbus as a collection of cowards. I continue writing to them for assistance in this matter, considering that’s part of what we pay our taxes for. And instead of responding to me, like I asked them to do, they forward my emails on to the apartment developer, like they did yesterday.

Stay classy, Columbus government – nice to see you’re doing your part to look out for and help your citizens. Or is it your political contributors? I’m fuzzy on the details. If I had more money to donate for election campaigns would I at least get an email response? I’ve got $10 – could that even get me an automated response?

And so Ardent Communities continues to “apologize” for screwing up over and over, when it’s obvious they are doing it on purpose. For a company that claims to have been in real estate for so many years, either Ardent Communities is utterly incompetent at what they do (making me wonder how they’ve been doing this for so long) or they’re simply evil bastards who are too used to getting their own way and will trample, ignore and try to destroy anything in their way to get what they want, with no respect for others. I’m betting it’s the second option.

Too bad (for them) that they had to build next to me.

I can’t stand seeing companies (with some unwise opinions about race) break the rules at the expense of everyday people just because they have more money and power. This is about waaaaaay more than a strip of land and a fence. This is about homeowners’ comfort, safety and health in their own homes being disregarded for the wants of the privileged.

Had I not complained as much as I already have, there would still be a 30ft deep pit on the edge of our property with nothing to prevent children from falling into it. There would be no partial fence on the other edge of the property line already. And they wouldn’t have even started this side of the fence.

Had I not complained and rallied the neighborhoods before the rezoning, they would have crammed even more apartment buildings into the space, with no attempts at providing any privacy screening or rules preventing convicted sex offenders from renting those apartments. We were unable to prevent the rezoning, but I was leading the community to get a few demands from the neighborhoods into that rezoning. (Which the company is still partially ignoring. Hence my continuing to shout loudly.)

The company is acting like a spoiled child who has never been told no. They drag their feet at what they’re required to do and do it poorly in the hopes of making us sorry we even demanded it in the first place. Fortunately, I have two children who have tried these tactics and been shut down before it got out of hand. Someone needs to tell these guys no as well. They need a time out and they need their toys taken away.

I don’t look kindly on entitled asshole businessmen who are so shady they renamed their company after earning a bad reputation and had an F rating with the Better Business Bureau. (The new company name has a C- so far.) They have a track record for trying to screw the average person, and that’s not right.

It’s on like Donkey Kong.

Filed Under: rant · Tagged:


Jul 11, 2012

Dye-Free in a Brightly Colored World

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A few weeks ago Cordy came home from summer camp with bright blue streaks down her legs and blue around her mouth. I could already smell the artificial raspberry flavor, but still asked her about how she ended up covered in blue. “We had popsicles at camp!” she happily explained.

“But sweetie, you know brightly colored foods aren’t good for you.”

“Yeah, I know,” she replied, “but it was a special treat!”

And that special treat left her distracted and less in control for days. Sigh.

When summer camp started, I asked about bringing in dye-free foods for snack time. They said we could but that it probably wasn’t necessary, as they were making efforts at healthy snacks this year and couldn’t think of any that would have dyes in them. Fruit, water, all-natural lemonade, graham crackers, cheese sticks, etc – all safe for Cordy to eat. With that knowledge, and a reminder to everyone about Cordy needing to avoid food dyes, I assumed we were in the clear when it came to snacks.

I guess I didn’t factor in “special” treats. Her class takes several field trips, and as a result they sometimes get a treat for the kids when they’re out and about. Cordy is aware that artificial food dyes make her feel bad and that she shouldn’t eat them, but she’s also a seven year old who, at that age, would have to show the impulse control of a zen master to say no to a treat when everyone else was getting one.

We consider her reaction to artificial food dyes an “allergy” even though it technically isn’t. It’s listed on all of her medical forms under allergy simply because it’s too complicated to provide the full explanation. Allergy produces a better response from others than “sensitivity” so that’s what we call it to get their attention. Only it still gets overlooked by teachers and caregivers far too often. It’s not life-threatening so therefore it isn’t given the same consideration as a peanut or shellfish allergy.

But we know it’s there. We’ve seen the difference between Cordy exposed to food dyes and Cordy without them. When she’s dye-free (and by that I mean hasn’t had any in over a week), she’s calmer, better able to focus, and seems more present in our world. Her repetitive behaviors (pacing back and forth, flapping, etc) are decreased, too. She’s more in control of herself and seems happier as a result.

When she was younger, people tried to tell me it wasn’t the dyes – we were just giving her too much sugar. So I set up my own test. I kept her dye free for over a week, then gave her a sucker (rock candy) that had no dye in it – pure sugar only. No reaction.

Days later, I gave her the same thing, only this one was bright blue with artificial coloring. Forty minutes later, the signs were there: she couldn’t sit still, she was irritable, emotionally out-of-control, and she wasn’t as interactive with us. She stayed like that for days, just from one little blue sucker. It was a frightening realization.

We’re not perfect with keeping her dye free, but we try to minimize the damage. Still, it’s very hard to find treats free of dyes. Annie’s makes fruit snacks without the artificial coloring. And Welch’s has all natural freeze-and-eat juice popsicles that look very similar to the artificial junk ones.

I also was recently told about Unreal, a line of candy that is free of artificial food dyes, but still looks and tastes like many of the popular candies we see everyday. It’s just rolling out, so it’s still hard to find, but I did manage to track down and buy it at Michael’s craft store. Their version of M&Ms? Really good.

So after the blue popsicle incident, we brought a bag full of Cordy’s treats to her summer camp to hand out to her when others are getting treats she can’t have. She’s usually pretty understanding about it, especially when we can give her some of the more yummy treats. But I know she longs for Starburst or a sucker now and then.

I only wish more food manufacturers would remove the bright food dyes from their foods. There’s no nutritional value to these dyes and there are natural dyes that can be used instead. Don’t believe me? Look at McDonald’s new Cherry Berry Chiller. That drink is about as bright pink-red as it could possibly be without glowing. I thought for sure it was one giant cocktail of dyes and artificial flavors, but it isn’t. It gets all of its color from fruit and vegetable sources, and the flavoring is all natural fruit juice and puree.

Who expected that?  If McDonald’s can do it, there’s no reason other companies can’t do it, too.

I hear more and more stories of parents who are discovering their kids are sensitive to food dyes. I know we’re not alone in experiencing some kind of adverse reaction to dyes. Research has linked it to hyperactivity. Some kids get rashes and eczema from red food dye. Others have stomach discomfort. Others – like Cordy – have various behavioral changes. And these dyes are in everything the kids come in contact with, from candy to mac and cheese, to chewable pain relievers and even toothpaste.

Europe has already figured this out, and most foods there are artificial-dye-free or contain warnings about having artificial coloring int them. What’s taking the United States so long to catch up with a public health issues that other first world countries have already known and addressed?

For now, we continue reading every label and try to educate those who care for our daughter about the importance of keeping her dye-free. It’s not that we’re crunchy green parents against all processed foods (because our grocery cart would prove we’re not) – it really is a matter of our daughter’s health.

Photo credit: Photos by *Micky 

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Filed Under: Autism, big issues, Cordy, healthy living, rant ·