All Dogs Go To Heaven: Kenichi Nishi's Tao Passes (GameSetWatch)
I had no idea that Tao the dog (see above) from the well-remembered Chibi-Robo was based on a real dog. And Tao has since passed away.

Fils-Aime: Nintendo Offers 'Full Meal' To iPhone's 'Small Chunks' (Gamasutra)
I do enjoy Reggie Fils-Aime:

"Consumers have only a limited amount of time for entertainment, so we compete with Apple," Fils-Aime said in a televised CNBC interview today. "We compete with your program [on CNBC]; we compete with books and magazines; we compete with everything people do for entertainment. From that standpoint, we're battling it out minute by minute."

When somebody finally does make a deep, complex iPhone game, only then will Reggie have to worry. Two years in and it still hasn't happened.

5th Cell on Scribblenauts' control scheme, and more insights (Joystiq)
Fact: Scribblenauts' dorked-up controls ruin the game. 5th Cell flubbed another one.

The OS Opportunity (Daring Fireball)
Interesting position from John Gruber that Dell and Sony (and others) should eschew Windows and have a go at making their own operating systems.

New to Me (Mice Age)
If Clark knew that DisneyWorld had Haunted Mansion action figures and we completely missed seeing/buying them, he would likely be quite upset.

Disney XD uses out-of-the-box thinking to promote out-of-this-world TV movie (Jim Hill Media)
Cute marketing story... how Disney used street theater to push SkyRunners at ComicCon.

8:22 AM Oct 16: There is a frog in our hotel room.

8:23 AM Oct 16: Multiple frogs. One alive, two dead.

These little guys must hop into the hotel room while the cleaning service has the doors propped open. Maybe they're diving into the rooms to escape the cell phone towers.

Received a hilarious reply from Paul on this topic: "Don't let your guard down. It only takes one insurgent frog getting through to accomplish the mission."

9:05 AM Oct 16: Today I will be the guy at Animal Kingdom wearing a Katamari shirt.

The awesome one, too. With the flocked puffy Prince+Katamari silhouette on a bright yellow shirt. I wonder if anybody noticed. The other day Clark and I spotted a Sinestro Corps shirt on some dude at Kohl's.

11:51 AM Oct 16: Everyone here as an iPhone.

Seriously. Everybody. Even eight years ago, you didn't notice that many cell phones at DisneyWorld. At least, we didn't back when we didn't own them ourselves. This time, it was hard not to notice the prevalence of iPhones. Specifically iPhones. And really, not so much being used for phone calls... mainly pictures and Facebook and Disney apps. I had one woman ask me if my Facebook app was working (her's wasn't) and I had another guy stop me to show off the Disney dining app he particularly liked. I know I had mine out all the time checking ride wait times and Twitter.

12:43 PM Oct 16: I think Animal Kingdom's crowd absorption structure is based mostly on people getting lost.

Considering the open, circular, sometimes austere layouts of the other three parks, Animal Kingdom is a pretty daring design. But it is really easy to feel lost when all the landmarks are obscured by trees. When you exit the safari, for example, you might be forgiven for not knowing which way leads back to the park. This is probably how they trick people into taking the ride out to Rafiki's Planet Watch.

1:53 PM Oct 16: Tough to be a Bug features complete lack of Hopper audioanimatronic. Wonder how long that's been down.

What the heck, man?! Fix that Hopper!

3:27 PM Oct 16: Animal Kingdom is the worst park with the best theming.

Just not quite fabulous enough, unless you get lucky and the animals are in full effect. Which they won't be because they're all nocturnal. We had an extra ding against DAK because the Boneyard kids playground was closed for rehab.

5:48 PM Oct 16: Eating veg at Tusker House. Tandoori tofu!

I ate a ton of that. Great buffet.

5:49 PM Oct 16: Yesterday we were at Epcot/Morocco, which looks like MGS4. Now we're at Africa AK which looks like RE5.

I don't know if that's a testament to the fantastically researched placemaking efforts of Disney and video gaming, or more of a sad commentary on how easy is it to achieve what dopey Americans will accept as reality.

8:31 PM Oct 16: Wow, was I expecting more from Mission: Space.

Yeah, that one kinda sucked. Didn't somebody die on that ride when it first opened? It was not as intense as advertised. The curse of Horizons continues!

11:11 PM Oct 16: I am sitting outside, enjoying a quiet resort veranda, a cool Florida night, and full 3G coverage.

The iPhone was sniffing out Disney corporate WiFi everywhere. They were all named in initials that indicated the park location. Although they would initially appear unsecured, you could not jump onto them.

12:05 AM Oct 17: Ugh. My weblog entries are full of iPhone-induced typos.

Yeah. The worst is when it auto-corrects to an entirely different word and you space away without realizing it.

11:06 AM Oct 17: @chrisgantz Ha! That was Mexico. I think of that every time I'm here. Looking back, it was probably a leftover tip.

An old chum sent me a DM referencing a famous fourth grade Disney trip where I found $5 on the floor at Epcot (in the queue for what was then the River of Time ride at Mexico.)

11:07 AM Oct 17: Just ran into a pile of multi-show Power Rangers.

I wasn't sure how to define the Ranger experience in 140 characters or less. What I meant by "multi-show" was that they had five different seasons of Rangers represented. SPD, Mystic Whatever, Jungle Fury, etc. I first typed "multi-generational" but thought that sounded like they were old.

Here's the Power Rangers' car, which I believe is a castoff from the Stars and Motorcars parade.

11:08 AM Oct 17: @chrisgantz Also, I'll see if I can find your glasses.

Again with the DMs... this one was about a time in high school when Chris and I happened to both be at DisneyWorld, and we went on all the Tomorrowland rides together. He lost his glasses on Space Mountain.

2:02 PM Oct 17: Honey, I Shrunk America's Interest in this Franchise

I remain shocked that the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure playground has still not been re-dressed to a Bug's Life theme. First, that whole end of Hollywood Studios is becoming Pixar World anyway. Second, the notion of "here's how movies get made" is dorky and old.

And third, Honey I Shrunk the Kids really sucks and has long since passed out of relevance. The archway to the playground still has a poster of the Honey syndicated show that starred Peter Scolari.

5:31 PM Oct 17: I am so glad that the movie where Robin Williams wants to be a Lost Boy is gone.

Really. The new pre-show for the animation tour is much nicer. A Cast Member "animator" interacts with an onscreen Disney character. We saw Mushu, but I imagine they have a couple characters in the rotation. It's fun and believable.

Much better than the aging, schmaltzy bit with Robin Williams turned into a Peter Pan reject. Which was, if I recall correctly, produced before he did Hook.

6:11 PM Oct 17: So Star Tours would have us believe that the Rebellion dispatched a third Death Star?

Yeah, I'm calling that out-of-continuity. This attraction deserves (and is getting) a rehab. Star Tours is so old that it debuted back when Star TREK was cool.

11:51 PM Oct 17: What does, like, Steve Ballmer think when he goes to DisneyWorld and sees 1 in 3 people with iPhones?

11:52 PM Oct 17: Does he think, "We'll sell Windows Mobile devices to the other 2 out of 3!"

Although I acknowledge that Disney isn't a great random sample (I would expect the average income of Disney guests to be higher), it is still startling to see that many iPhones around every corner.

11:55 PM Oct 17: Aw, f it. I'm reading Hush.

We met up with Florida-based pals MaryJane and Henri, who brought some great gifts for Clark. Alongside the heap of awesome action figures was a Batman: Hush trade, which I tore into that night!