Summer is soon approaching and we need to figure out what we're doing.  We're sending G to day camp (later post), but as one of the entertainment options, we'll probably sign up for a season pass to one of the local amusement parks.  It's only $70 - it pays for itself after 2 visits.  Since I work from home, 2 visits won't be a problem.  I hate going on weekends because it gets pretty crowded, so we usually go during the week.  Ahhh... the perks of playing poker - I feel bad for the people who have to work Monday thru Friday because the parks get disgustingly crowded on the weekends.

The choices are a local family park called Lake Compounce, or the more national Six Flags.  There are three Six Flags parks all within 2-3 hours of where I live, but Lake Compounce is about half as far.  We were leaning more towards LC, but then I found out Six Flags New England opened up a bunch of Thomas the Tank Engine attractions.  Sold!

G loved Thomas when he was younger and D *loooooves* Thomas now - well, technically he likes Percy more.  Thomas the Tank Engine has got to be the #1 Evil Empire in the toy industry.  WTF at at a wooden train costing like $20.  We have well over $2K worth of TTE crap in our house - train table, Tidmouth Shed, a bajillion pieces of tracks, like 60% of the engines, most of the dvds, books, etc.  They have not only the wooden trains and tracks, they have plastic as well as metal - and of course all the tracks and accessories are of different sizes which are not compatible with each other.  So that in itself is enough to get labeled as an Evil Empire.  But at my last visit to the toy store, I noticed they came out with a new line called "lights and sounds" - basically the same trains, but they have lights and makes a sound when you press a button.  Evil Empire.

I just realized that I'm an Evil Empire magnet.  I'm a lifelong NY Yankee fan (the Evil Empire of baseball).  I own 4 active computers and therefore 4 sets of Microsoft products (the original Evil Empire), and now the Evil Empire of toys.  All this Empire talk any my poker breakeven-ness is making me want to whip out the Civ 2.