General &Travels DAH on 21 Jun 2007 09:45 pm
Fear Factor Live
The long awaited story is finally here for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately I had posted a day pic regarding this several weeks ago, thinking I would relate the story in short order. But obviously that didn’t happen. Hopefully no-one has looked at my day pics (what a sad thought!) and therefore the supprised has been saved.
The story goes thusly. I went down to Florida back at the end of May. Mike Bert had invited me to join his family oh their trip to visit family and amusement parks in good ole’ FL, and I happily agreed. (many thanks to his family for including me) As a brief overview, the time was initially spent at the Magic Kingdom and MGM parks, followed by a last day of park fun at Universal. This is where we join our protagonist. (it has been so long since HS lit, I hope I am not embarrasing myself)
The day started out clear and bright, a perfect day to take in some thrills. First up where some fun new rides and attractions (i had never been to Universal before), such as MiB, where you get to shoot real aliens!, and much walking around. Then we continued on around the park and came across the Fear Factor Live stage, (not to be confused with the tv show, this was a park experience *based* on the tv show) and Mike’s brother Jonathon said “lets wait here, I want to get on this thing!” Ok, so his exact words escape me, this was like a month ago after all! If you went and stood in this line 45 minutes or so before the next show, you got an opportunity to try out to be one of the contestants. Well, I thought this was plain silly, who wanted to wait around for a whole hour just to try to be in a show where you would probably have as much fun simply watching the other fools acting like … fools?
Somewhere along the line Mike’s mom insisted that Mike and I try out to, because “we might regret it since we are here now and won’t ever be again!”. Hm, well I kinda obliged and joined the long line of 3 ppl. Mike somehow managed to get a phone call and snuck out of the line, I am not sure how he managed such fortuitus timing. I on the other hand remained in line, and decided that this might just be worth doing. Well, it seems like they have pretty stringent size and weight restrictions because of their ‘one-size-fits-all’ security gear, So I got bounced by the guy with the ‘you-must-be-this-tall-to-ride’ measuring stick, although in all fairness it was a ‘you-must-not-be-any-taller-than-this’ stick. I was a whole half inch to tall to compete! how lame, I bet i would have won a cool shirt.
No the story doesn’t end there. It seems they try to persuade the suckers they disqualify (me and another dude 10 pounds over the weight restriction) that they can still be part of the fun, they just have to eat some ‘food’. The quotes are quite appropriate. They would not tell us what the food was (has anyone not seen fear factor? this isn’t rice pudding type fare), only that it would be in smoothie form, about 4 or 5 ounces of it. The trick would be to drink it all before the other team of two. Fun. After like 45 minutes of just siting around the time came. The fear factor show was in full swing, and I was siting there wondering if it would be rude to get up and leave.
So, since I am rambling and not moving this story on, I will skip to the ‘thing’ itself. The smoothie was made from the following ingredients.
- Fish heads, rancid squid, icky oyster (with bits of shell) all marinated in their own juices
- Mystery meat (???)
- Something else… I forget
- Sour milk
- and the final last minute surprise, wriggling meal worms and grasshoppers!
Pulse to taste!
This yielded a nasty brownish ‘liquid’ that was more lumpy than it was fluid. Drinking it? I must confess that in the excitement of the moment I failed to notice the taste. I did notice the texture, boy was there a lot of texture. I was so engrossed in the experience of drinking this, that I almost forgot that we were in a race to down this noxious concoction, So I quickly downed the last of my drink, to lose to the other team by .000023 seconds. What a rip off!
Heh, so it was fun anyways, and I didn’t puke. Although the wisdom of having nasty stuff in your stomach at the outset of a fun day riding roller coasters could be called into question. The most anoying thing was that I kept belching sour milk burps, and the taste was NOT enjoyable to continually relive. 
Thats all for now folks!
on 21 Jun 2007 at 9:57 pm 1.Laura said …
wow, dave … you make the memory so vivid i almost recall living it myself! i’m glad i didn’t. you certainly don’t put your hs english teachers to shame. you wrote that story very well – it was riveting =)
on 25 Jun 2007 at 3:11 pm 2.Megan said …
Not only did I see your day pictures but your girlfriend spoiled the story for me a long time ago…though it’s still fun to read about:) And I also marvel at Mikey’s “timeing” hmm something suspicous going on there!
on 25 Jun 2007 at 8:03 pm 3.Melissa said …
what a great story dave, but my real reason for commenting has to do with your day pics. I don’t think there is a way to comment on them in your gallery, as far as i can see. I think the soda/mentos one is great! I love how you got the people reacting in the background, although they aren’t making too much of a reaction. I want to try this experiment myself sometime!!!
on 06 Jul 2007 at 6:58 am 4.Kristine said …
i’m glad i got to hear this one from you a little closer in date to the actual experience…
it doesn’t loose much in the re-telling though. shouldn’t the show be called “the most-disgusting-thing-you-can-think-of” factor? “ick” factor for short? wow. i def. wouldn’t be able to stomach it.
i’m happy to report that food in berlin is much more palatable. i’ve eaten vietnamese, italian, mediterranean (donor kebaps and stuffed grape leaves), and tasty german waffles. must visit the grocery store again this weekend to stock up on breakfast supplies and perhaps some dinner items.
tchus!