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Edit by Colin: 10/20/2008

Disaster is a new ride opening at Universal Studios Orlando tomorrow. While I’ve been there several times this week I was actually able to get into one of the tech rehearsals that they were running for the attraction.

Disaster is supposed to be replacing the Earthquake ride which was horribly outdated. I must say that the new attraction has been completely redone, well at least half of it has been. I’ll try to go over some of the highlights and let downs of the attraction without ruining the actual story behind the ride.

The highlight of the attraction to me was the ramblings of Christopher Walken in hologram form that lasted for about 10-15 minutes. The fact that Walken was a hologram is not the part that impressed me but how he interacted with the set. At one point the image of Walken was picking up books from a table and handing them to a live person on the set. The entire time parts of the image would disappear as Walken moved behind objects on the stage. The cinematography they used for the attraction was simply fascinating to me because it actually was very life like.

After the initial scene with Walken the attraction took a turn for the worse. The second part consisted of using participants from the audience to film stunt shots. The images on the screen of what they were actually filming did look pretty spiffy but the entire segment of the ride just felt rushed and nothing in it was all that impressive.

The final part of the ride was a major disappointment. They prepped it up as helping Walken film a scene for a movie and the premise did seem to be exciting. The problem with it was that it is the old Earthquake ride. The set was not changed at all from what it was and absolutely nothing was any different. The other issue I had with this segment is that it didn’t actually work correctly. The set moved like it was supposed to at points, some of the effects did not go off, and the video segment of the ride did not begin playing until they had you exiting the ride (it was supposed to start before the set started to move). Normally I would overlook the technical problems since it was just a tech rehearsal but this time I simply can not since the ride opens tomorrow.

If you have not been on it before, then yes it is worth the time.If you have been on the ride before, the only good part is Walken. If the line is long I would recomend skipping it.

The long awaited Macbook Air has finally been announced. The computer includes everything you could want and is a remarkable display of engineering and design from the Apple team.

Macbook Air Tour

The new laptop brings some new features to the table. Multi touch is now supported on the trackpad and function just like the iTouch and iPhone. The computer also features two options of newly designed 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors. These processors have been custom fitted for the new engineering standards.

The computer also features some new and interesting battery technology that is half the sizes and still provides 5 hours of wireless use.

The computer does lack a DVD drive. And while this seems to be a downfall it isn’t due to the innovation that has sprung up from it. These new laptops features something called, “Remote Disc.” Remote Disc allows the access of any DVD Drive (Mac or Windows) on the same network or wirelessly using bluetooth.

The laptop is also adopting the N wireless technology cards and Bluetooth 2.1 is used to further the push for bluetooth technology.

The Macbook Air is also continuing the streak of Green Machines in the Apple camp. It’s Energy Star certified, Mercury and PVC free and is fully recyclable.

My favorite features come from the hard drive…

Buyers will have two options-

1) An ultra slim PATA 80GB HD

2) Solid State 64 GB HD

There is no doubt the computer looks sexy and will surely make and impact on the engineering of hardware components. For awhile it has felt like everything has been growing in size in both laptops and desktops. This hopefully shows an alternative.

The only thing I feel consumers will shy away from is the lack of a DVD drive. But honestly- Burning CDs is a thing of the past and anytime I’ve ever installed software I’m at home or work near a plethora of other comps.