The Renaissance Fair

Just recently I visited the Renaissance Faire or the Ren Faire to those in the know, with my girlfriend and 2 nephews. As their website likes to proclaim they behold pageantry, revelry, and romance, and believe me there’s lots of all that going on. If you don’t know what the Renn Faire is it’s a giant fair filled with games, food, arts and crafts, and performances, but set in the renaissance times; it’s very “King-Arthury-and-Knights-of-the-Round-Tabley” type of fair. Not to mention women walk around with fruit or daggers between their bosoms pouring out of their corset dresses. People get very into it by dressing up, talking, and behaving like they did back in Renaissance times and yours truly got right into the act. Actually all of us rented costumes except my youngest nephew Kamren; he refused.

It’s a long trek out to the Renn Faire its way out in Hollister right by Gilroy, but worth it! Where else can you eat a giant turkey leg and throw knives? The food was awesome. My girlfriend and I had the giant turkey leg and then later split a tri tip sandwich. Eating was probably my favorite thing to do there. We also shot bow and arrows, threw knives, and shot cross bows at targets. All the games were really hard and we all lost except my youngest nephew Kamren, who won a skull necklace at the knife throwing booth. I thought dressing up was supposed to help; that should have been my skull necklace! There were also lots of other cool mid evil things to do like ride on a giant swing, watch jousting, and eat more food. The swing was cool and it was basically as it sounds; a giant swing that 5 people sit in and they push you. The jousting was a bit cooler than the swing, but it was rainy and they didn’t joust on horseback which kind of sucked, so instead they fought on the ground with swords and axes, still cool. The one thing I hated about the Renn Faire is that I spent like a million dollars! If you ever travel back in time to knights in shining armor and dragons make sure to bring your wallet, because everything cost money; nothing was free, but luckily they had ATMs back then with a $3.50 service charge! I gripe about the cost, but need I say the Renaissance Fair was hecka fun!

I went to the Renn Faire as a kid, but I never dressed up till this most recent time, which made it way better, but as I said earlier my nephew Kamren didn’t want to dress up, so since my girlfriend, my older nephew Kendal, and myself did dress up shouldn’t we get to go faster in all the lines for food and games? We paid a large fee for the costumes, which the Renn Faire gets, so for that extra fee we should get priority over the people who didn’t pay for costumes like my nephew Kamren. Except this would be totally unfair to people who can’t afford costumes and to those who don’t want costumes. This brings me to net neutrality which is the concept that networks shouldn’t restrict the communications based on what the user uses the internet for; everyone should receive the same internet service and price whether they are simply checking their myspace or running myspace. Tom, the guy who started myspace should have the same internet as a slutty person on myspace. I only use this analogy because there are so many sluts on myspace (not judging). For the evolution of the internet providers like phone and cable companies shouldn’t charge more for businesses that use more space or do more on the internet. If there were a giant fee it would make it impossible for startup companies to compete. What if myspace was just starting up and they had to pay a giant fee, because of that they might not ever develop and then where would all the sluts put their pictures? Whether you’re CEO or a floozy you should get the same internet for the same price, and the same concept applies to the Renn Faire. Whether you dress up like a crazy person or wear normal clothes you should get the same Renn Faire at the same price and wait in line for your giant turkey leg like everyone else.

Whales Love Free Culture

When writing a blog or any other type of interactive media we have to familiarize ourselves with certain terms like free culture, which is basically “How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity” Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity (Lawrence Lessig, 2004). But how can such a serious, gigantic, and problematic subject as free culture tie in with hecka fun? It’s simple….it doesn’t! When you want hecka fun just avoid it. The way to avoid it is by getting away from technology. Run! Or walk to the outdoors. Go whale watching; that’s what I did and let’s just say someone had hecka fun.

If you love animals, or the ocean, or just being on a boat, or all 3 then you’ll love whale watching. My girlfriend and I went for our 4 year anniversary. We wanted to do something we’ve never done before and get away without having to really get away, so I booked a super cheap hotel, America Best Value INN, in Monterey, because I’m hecka broke. Actually, it wasn’t even in Monterey it was in Seaside, the poor man’s Monterey, which equals about a $100 cheaper, which then equals awesome! We got to our hotel Saturday during the day, so with time to kill we went down to canary row and saw an iMax documentary about a giant feeding frenzy in which dolphins, whales, and birds feed on a giant school of sardines off the coast of South Africa, called Wild Ocean 3D. It was really cool and in 3D! It got us in the mood to go see real whales, but first dinner. We ate at Jugem Japanese Restaurant, which was a tasty-reasonably-priced sushi place along with a few sake bombs. I picked it because of its good reviews on yelp.com. Which is also where I found the highly reviewed whale watching company, Monterey Bay Whale Watch; you can also read my stunning review there too. But before I get to the whales let me tell you about a great little part of Monterey, which I had never seen in the few times that I have been there, which is the Old Fisherman’s Warf. It’s no Pier 39, but it’s a cool little pier flowing with good restaurants and cheesy souvenir shops. Later that night we saw a family of raccoons; they were cute, BUT DEADLY! But mainly cute. That was our fabulous Saturday, but Sunday was the moneymaker.

We woke up early, sevenish, showered, put on layers of clothes, took motion sickness pills, hopped in the car and drove back to the Old Fisherman’s Warf where our whale watching boat awaited us, and of course we were running late, because that’s how we live our life. I chose the 9am trip because it’s a smoother and more you’re likely to spot sea creatures, and oh, we spotted sea creatures. Heading out from the dock we saw a ton of Seals, Sea Lions, and sea birds, but I’m from the Bay Area not Idaho! So that wasn’t anything special. It wasn’t till we got a couple miles out that we spotted 2 Hump Back Whales. Our boat got really close and we saw them breach the surface, blow air, and dive back down very slowly, which was very cool. Later we saw 2 Blue Sharks, which sounds awesome, but wasn’t really that awesome. The fist shark all you could see was the tip of the fin and the second I saw was underwater and it sort of looked like a shadow, but next we saw one of the coolest things ever. We saw a pod of Killer Whales hunt down and eat a Sea Lion. There was a mom Killer Whale, a young Killer Whale, and two baby Killer Whales, who were extremely cute way cuter than the raccoons, and WAY DEADLIER! Deadlier always equals cooler. After the kill the family of whales was so thrilled and excited that they flung themselves out of the water and splashed around just like at Marine World, except this was a bazillion times cooler. The marine biologist on board told us how sensitive, smart, and family oriented the Orca Whale is, which actually means demon, and that the splashing reaffirms social bonds and is a display of self expression (obviously Free Culture isn’t a problem for them), and in the wild Orca’s live up to 90 years, but in captivity the average life span is only 7. The marine biologist on board had tons of great information and I had tons of stupid questions like “What do seals and dolphins think of each other and would they ever play?” She told me that was a great question, but my girlfriend gave me the you’re-embarrassing-me look; that’s my job and I’ve been doing it for 4 years now.

This was a great trip, I highly recommend it, but go in the summer it’s supposed to be even better, and best of all it was technology free. Nature is technology free; the Orca Whale definitely didn’t have to worry about corporations using technology and the law to lock down and control its creativity. So like my dear Orca friends keep splashing out of the water in self expression, and then put it on YouTube.