Two Thousand Three, and Five Thousand, Even.

Badabing, badabam, badaBOOM, it's another new year. And with it came the 5000'th hit to my blog. Scary thought, that one.

I could describe in detail how awesome New Years Eve was for me, but a lot of it would be repititious from last year. So I'll highlight some of the new stuff. This year I brought along my new digital camera, a cute little Elph S230 I highly recommend. Was as usual one of the first to arrive at the crack of dawn, ended up parking over near the new structure though this time, lived dangerously. Zipped on over to the main gate via the very helpful tram (more on how it became less helpful later) and took my usual spot in front of the gate lines. Eventually 7:30 rolled around and they opened up Main Street, which was all decked out as usual in Christmas garb. I snapped a few pics, and then got used to what would be a common theme for the rest of the day, always being crushed against the six people in your general vicinity. Finally 8:00 came and they opened up the rest of the part, which began a mad dash towards various rides for the thousands of people already there. I ended up getting really lucky with ride lines throughout the day, it seemed like every time a ride was closed, it would reopen while I was standing there, and I'd be one of the first on. By the time I'd come back out, the line would already be upwards of an hour or two. I wasn't complaining.

Got on basically everything major by around noon, and finally met up with the first pair of friends I knew who were coming in the early afternoon. Cell phone tag became the name of the game as we tried to coordinate various groups and splitting up and so forth, I'd jacked my mom's for the day so it all worked out pretty well.

Some of the funnier moments involved a certain AMAZINGLY CUTE (or so I'm told) worker leading the way on the Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes, where I got absolutely dominated by the kid behind me, as he made sure to dump as much water on me with his paddle as possible. Always a joy. Also got a lot more soaked on Splash Mountain than usual, not sure what that was all about.

The dancing scene later on was quite sub-par compared to previous years, seemed like they had these ten minute versions of songs that never really ended. It also seemed a lot more crowded, maybe because I wasn't by myself, and trying to keep a chain of five people together through the biggest crowd ever is pretty rough. My energy level as usual soared from about 8pm on, thanks to some yummy Jambalaya at the French Market.

I must stop and give HUGE BROWNIE POINTS to the coolest person ever who was willing to hold my spot in line at dinner while I went outside to watch the awesome first fireworks show. Fireworks are one of my favorite things ever, and the fact that she was willing to miss the show just so I could see it is going to be worth gigantic points for a while. YOU RULE!

Speaking of the fireworks, they seemed even more awesome than usual this year, not sure why, maybe it had just been a while. They really go nuts, and everyone's favorite kinds popped up often. They shoot them off from all the way across the back of the park instead of just one spot, so you end up with these really neat effects timed to the music, and stuff like shooting stars and neat patterns. Pretty much went deaf during the finale of the final show, if I wasn't already.

The last ten seconds of the year has reestablished itself as my favorite time, something absolutely amazing about screaming at the top of your lungs with 100,000 people all counting down in unison, and then being greeted with a tremendous explosion and fireworks display with the huge number 2003 lighting up Tom Sawyer's Island.

Man, I dunno whether it's something they put in the food or what, but as soon as I get out of those arches and under the train station, suddenly all the pain and soreness and tiredness hits me at once. Unfortunately they stopped the trams until 1:45 due to the mass exodus that would have overfilled them, so when we left at like 1:15 we ended up having to walk the good three quarters of a mile or so back to the parking structure. Between spinning faster than I ever had on the Mad Tea Party teacups, and dancing the night away bouncing off benches and trash cans, I was pretty much one big pile of ow.

I gotta thank everyone who went with me, it's a lot more fun having someone to blab to, and it's great seeing everyone else having as much fun as I am. Well maybe they're not quite as obsessed with the whole concept of Disneyland, but at least they appeared to enjoy it. :) The picture I took of Sleeping Beauty's castle when lit up with these beautiful blue spotlights at night has become my desktop, feel free to contact me if you want a copy.

I actually took a lot of cool pictures, I guess I'm going to have to figure out to set up a picture site at one of those places and link to it from here, so everyone can enjoy the photography as much as me. I'll get around to that.

More later on New Year's resolutions and such.