Random Notes from a Crank

A couple of summers ago, the Nasty family took a trip to Des Moines to play at Adventureland. A good portion of our time was spent at the water park. My memory got jogged about that experience because I just saw this article on the world's tallest waterslide under construction in Kansas City. It's call Verruckt, German for "insane." 

As I've written about before on this forum, or maybe I haven't, I'm a geek about typefaces. Recently, I decided to use Avenir Heavy typeface for headings in a document, and my mind started wandering. Who invented Avenir, and why call one version "Heavy"? I imagined a bunch of stoned graphic designers playing with the typeface one night, and then one of them adjusts the typeface so it's so thick and bold that boldface is not needed. Then one of his pot-smoking designers says, "Wow, that's heavy, man." And there you go: Avenir Heavy was born. Unfortunately, that narrative is improbable since Avenir was created in 1988 when the word "heavy" was not in mass use for that kind of meaning like in previous decades. 

And if you care about typefaces, here's "Best Practices of Combining Typefaces", "Typographical Twins: 20 Perfect Font Pairings,"  and "19 Top Fonts in 19 Top Combinations."  

A comic of note:

I started reading Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware the other day. It's one of those adult comic books, one in which the main character deals with finally meeting his father he never knew. It's semi-autobiographical, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think Ware wrote the tale for cathartic reasons, but it seems a bit too confessional for my blood. I'm usually not a fan of confessional stuff, and I guess I'm used to comic books graphic novels that have more action to them, such as the outstanding series Mind MGMT by Matt Kindt. Do yourself a favor and read that series, people. It's worth your time, money, and mental energy. 

Stay Positive: Bumper Cars

"It's gonna be a fun-filled day!"

If you recognize that snippet from a jingle, you're either from Iowa or you've spent some time in Iowa.

For those of you unfamiliar with the lyrics, you can check out this commercial for Adventureland, circa 1985, if you want to invite an earworm into your head.

This past weekend, the Nasty family traveled to Iowa on Thursday to visit my parents, and then we headed down to Des Moines for a family reunion of Mrs. Nasty's at the Adventureland Inn in Altoona.

I think I only went to Adventureland once as a kid, probably in the early 80s, but the amusement park hasn't changed much--log ride, the galleon, the Tornado, etc. In fact, there are parts of the park that look decrepit, making it a good set for a slasher movie or something.

The new portion of the Adventureland experience is its massive water park, with all kinds of water slides, kiddie pools, a swim-up bar, cabanas, and a lazy river. I could make all manner of unkind comments based on my observations at the water park befitting a Notes from a Crank post, but I'm staying positive with this one.

Of everything we did Saturday, my favorite part of the experience was competing on the electrified vehicular battlefield of bumper cars. It's an old fashioned ride, but it's a damn fine experience--never goes out of style.

You get in little cars and get to smash into your relatives. Quinn, my four-year old, informed me, "You're going down!", before we started, but that was not the case, I got a couple of side shots on his car driven by his grandpa. And Hannah, she got me once, but I got her back. On the bumper car grid, I don't play, people.

Heck, just writing about bumper cars makes me want to go on them again. It was a fine time.